Of Things Great and Small
by Dragon Mystic
Summary: This is the life of Marlena, a military woman who is caught in the zombie epidemic that swept the world only to find friends in the most unlikely of places.
1. Chapter 1

Dont own, dont sue.

Just thought that i would give this a try, some things may not be accurate and i know this already so there is no need to freak out on me. Please enjoy the story and let me know what you think.

* * *

It was the end of the world as it was known, the dead had taken over and were eating what was left of the living and it had only been a few months since the sickness had been started with what seemed to just be a cold but once the person expired they came back and started to rip through the population and because it wasn't known what was going on a lot of the population was taken out swiftly and the only way to get these things down was a shot to the head messing up the brain.

The military cordons were swiftly over run with the living, not having the appropriate screening process those that where bitten or scratched before coming in, turned and took out the people in the safe area including the military personnel and only a few escaped back into the city to hide out where they could and gather what supplies were left from looters and other people just looking to survive for a few more days.

A young woman looked out of the windows of the truck she was driving the back seat was full of medical supplies as far as the eye could see, the bed was loaded to the brim with fuel barrels, both petrol and diesel, and being towed behind that was an MSFV that was fully loaded with lots of food, clothes, MRE's and water and if rationed, even with a large group it could last for a couple of months. The young woman had been stationed in Atlanta, near the CDC but left the CDC it's self when she noticed that the clock was getting to far down for her liking, even with the extra fuel barrels from the Military being given over, knowing what would happen when the clock struck zero, the CDC would implode taking all of its diseases with it and anyone that was in the area as well.

The young woman sighed and came to a stop in the middle of the road and pulled out a map from the glove box and gave it a look over and saw a quarry not too far out of Atlanta that was secluded enough and had a water supply so the water in the MSFV wouldn't have to be used for a while.

The radio crackled as she drove, a military strike had been called in to napalm Atlanta to hopefully make it safer and take out the dead while they were at it. Putting her foot down on the gas and she hauled ass out of Atlanta before the strike could commence in a few hours. She drove pass the cars that were waiting to get into Atlanta, to the safe zone, and ignored the waving arms and kept driving heading to her destination feeling slightly bad for just driving past them and ignoring them but there was nothing for them in Atlanta anymore, especially not with the strike coming.

30 minutes later she pulled off on to a dirt track that led to the quarry and went up the hill and came to a stop and jumped out and moved to the back to unhook the MSFV so she could turn the truck around to the right place for it to stand for a while and then she hopped in the MSFV and reversed that back to sit up in front of the truck and pulled out a tent and propped it up. It was a medic's tent so she would be able to have the medical supplies in there and her cot, there was no way that she was giving up any of her supplies unless it was needed and even then the people she came across had best be nice.

* * *

Night fall had come and the people that were stuck on the highway paced nervously outside of their cars, waiting to be let in to the city and to safety. The line hadn't moved in quite a while and they were anxious to know why so a few fiddled with their radios to see if there was any communication coming through at all and only got snippets.

"Mum, I'm hungry." Carl Grimes complained to his mum, rubbing at his tummy.

"I know honey, let me see if I have anything in my bag." Lori responded and went back to the front of the car and looked through her handbag but came up empty handed, "Sorry honey, you're just going to have to wait a little bit longer."

Carl sighed and looked down at his swinging feet, "Okay mum." He muttered.

"I might have something he could have." Came the timid voice of Carol Peletier from where she was standing with her daughter, Sophia.

Lori sighed in relief, "That would be great if you do."

Carol nodded and headed to her car and as she reached in, Ed, her husband grabbed her arm in a bruising grip, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He snapped at her, "This is our food, no one else's."

Carol whimpered and pulled her arm out of his grip, "Okay." She whimpered and headed back over to Lori who had watched the whole exchange from the corner of her eye but knew that there wasn't really anything that she could say or do about the situation, "Sorry, we don't have anything snack like left." She told Lori softly.

Lori gave Carol a soft smile, "That's okay." She responded, "I'm Lori Grimes and this is my son Carl." She introduced.

"I'm Carol Peletier and this is my daughter Sophia and over there is Ed." Carol responded in kind, "Do you have any idea of what's going on?" She questioned Lori.

Lori shook her head, "No idea, Shane, who's with us, has gone up the road a little to see what's going on and if anyone up the road away has heard anything." Lori explained just as Shane made his way back to them, "Shane this is Carol, her daughter Sophia and over there is her husband Ed, Carol this is Shane Walsh." Lori introduced and Shane shook Carol's hand exchanging pleasantries, "Have you heard anything?"

Shane shook his head, "Not really, all I've heard is that no one is entering Atlanta." He explained running a hand over his head, "Haven't seen anything Military since that truck went by." He said just as jets flew over head toward the city and he took off over the barricade toward the woods.

"Could you watch Carl for a second?" Lori asked Carol and at Carol's nod she ran off after Shane, grabbing onto his arm as she came to a stop, "What's going on?" She questioned just as bombs dropped on Atlanta and screams were heard echoing from the city and from the people on the road at what was happening to the city, "Oh my God." Lori gasped, a hand covering her mouth in shock at what was happening, a tear trailed down her cheek.

Shane grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the road, "Carl, come on. We need to find somewhere to stay." He said pushing Lori in to the car and turned his attention to Carol, "Your family can come as well." He told her just as he was approached by an older man wearing a fishing hat, "Yes?"

"I'm Dale Horvath, there is a quarry about 30 minutes back down the road, I figure that would be the best place to go for now until we can figure something out." He explained to Shane.

"Shane Walsh, thank you for letting us know and I agree with your assessment, we should head there if you could lead the way?"

Dale nodded, "Of course, just follow me." He said and headed back to his RV and moved it the best he could from behind the other cars and onto the free side of the highway and went down the road a little until a couple of other cars followed his lead and they headed off down the road.

30 minutes later Dale came to the turn off for the quarry and headed up the road only to see the army truck from earlier parked on the hill and a body of top of the cab with a sniper rifle pointed in their direction, the woman moved her head from the gun and brought up a pair of binoculars to get a look at those in the RV and cars behind, sitting up she waved her hand for them to advance and the RV did a U-turn and pulled up next to the truck and the rest of the cars took their places around the camp and everyone climbed out of their vehicles.

Dale walked over to where the young woman was still sitting, "Hello there, thank you for letting us approach." He greeted, "I'm Dale."

"Major Marlena Tally." She responded giving a slight salute and watched as most of the men came over to where she was seated.

"What the hell are you doing here? Why did you leave the city?" Shane snapped at her.

Marlena looked down at the man with a raised eyebrow, "The city fell hours ago the dead outnumbered us 10 to 1, there was nothing else we could do, I lost a lot of friends and comrades to those menaces so I grabbed what supplies I could and came out here." She explained, "Not that I really have to explain anything to you." She sneered.

"Well you're going to be giving us what you have slut." Ed spoke up from where he was smoking a cigarette.

Marlena let out a laugh, a long hard laugh at his audacity at demanding anything from her, "Like hell I will. I was willing to share should it come to it but now that you think you can order me around you have another thing coming." She snapped, "Oh and if you want any medical help, don't come to me." She said to him. The fat pig could die for all she cared, there was no way in hell she was helping him, "Any way, if I have to share what I have, so should you." She told him.

Shane walked in between the two, Marlena's eyes going to him instead of Ed, "I'm sure that we could work something out between all of us, we _all_ need to pool what we have so that we can survive here until there is a possibility to go and get more later on." He said speaking to everyone, "Do you happen to have another big tent like that one we could store everything in?" He asked Marlena.

Marlena nodded, "Yeah I do, and it's a mess tent so it's going to take a few people to put it up." She explained still not coming down from the cab of the truck, "It'd be best to do it in the light of day though." She explained.

"Do you at least have anything handy that we can give the children?" Shane questioned.

Marlena nodded and hung over the top of the cab and pulled out a bag from the passenger seat and brought it to her lap, "How many kids are there?" She questioned.

"I'll go and check." Dale said and moved off to walk around the cars and get a count of all of the children and soon came back, "There are 6 all together." He explained and Marlena threw down 6 protein bars to Dale, not trusting the look on Ed's face.

"High protein bars, they'll be good for the kids at a time like this. Make sure only they get them." She told Dale and with a nod he headed off to hand out the bars to the children.

"And what about us?" Ed sneered.

Marlena rolled her eyes, "I assume that some of you have canned goods, you can eat once you have made up a fire pit so that you can see what you're doing when you put up your tents and someone can cook for you. The kids are more important than you are you fat fuck." She told him point blank and got a few quiet chuckles from the other men, a very angry look from Ed and a belly aching laugh from one of the men standing a little away from the group.

"Oh Jesus, that was great. Haven't laughed like that in a while." He said looking up at Marlena, "Good one sugar tits."

Marlena looked down at the one that spoke, grabbing her torch and shining it down on the group so that she could see their faces clearly and put the names with faces, when the light go to the one that had laughed she almost dropped the torch in shock, "Holy hell Merle Dixon?" She questioned jumping down from the cab to the ground.

"What's it to ya?" Merle responded squinting his eyes at her, trying to place the face but couldn't see her very well, until she turned the torch to illuminate her face, "Well shit angel, thought you went and died." He said bringing her in to a tight hug and let her go.

"You two know each other?" Shane questioned, looking over Merle with suspicion, not trusting the white trash red neck in the slightest or his companion that arrived with him.

"We served together for a while." Marlena responded.

Marlena brought up her pistol as Ed charged at her, the barrel pressing into the man's forehead, Merle's gun had also joined hers, "You ever think again about coming at me intending to cause harm I _will_ shoot you and that isn't a warning, it's a promise." She told him with a blank look in her eyes, "It wouldn't be the first time I've put down a pig." Merle let out a chuckle from behind her, "Now you head back over to your family and sort your shit out so ya'll can get some sleep."

"You'll get yours bitch." Ed snarled and stormed off.

"I'll be keeping an eye on him." Marlena grumbled as she watched him walk off.

"You're not the only one." Shane muttered from next to her, "I believe he's abusive to his wife and daughter."

Marlena spit to the side, "Fucking pig."

"Agreed."

Marlena opened the truck and pulled out a shovel and headed to the most central area of the 'camp' with the guys following after her, "What ya doin' sugar tits?" Merle questioned.

Marlena rolled her eyes and hit Merle over the back of the head, "Digging the bloody fire pit ya igit." She responded and went back to digging a slight pit, "Start gathering some rocks to put around the pit so that the fire can sit a little higher." She said indicating for the guys to shoo and get said rocks, Merle and a guy with a crossbow went and did as asked, the others following a few seconds later to help with the rocks.

20 minutes later the pit was done and a fire was going and everyone started to gather around it, the kids were happy that there was somewhere warm to sit as the night started to cool a little more and the people started to introduce themselves to each other as a couple of them brought over some pots and canned food so that something could be cooked up and passed around to everyone.

Marlena sat down on a log, "What are the sleeping arrangements like?" She asked, "Does everyone have a tent?"

Most of the people shook their head no indicating that they didn't have anything like that with them, "I have 3 tents, one is a 5 man and two are 3 man so to speak." Dale spoke up, "I won't be needing them since I have the RV so others are welcome to have them." He said with a smile.

"The napalm should be settled by tomorrow, I'll head into town and grab some more supplies." Marlena said as she took a bite out of her protein bar.

"You going to go on your own sugar tits?" Merle questioned from next to her.

"It's better that way, I don't want to get caught up with anyone." She responded.

"How well do ya know the city darlin'?" He questioned her softly, "How long were you here before you left?"

Marlena sighed, "Not long, but I can't afford to have someone with me. I need to get in and get out without any problems." She told him, she couldn't have another death on her conscious.

"I'll go with you." Glenn spoke up from where he was sitting eating his tea, "I know my way around Atlanta really well, all the short cuts and alleys." He explained, "I'll take care of myself." He told her.

Marlena nodded, "Alright, but no one else. It's just us. In and out before the day is through, get some sleep as soon as you can I want to leave at dawn." She outlined.

Glenn nodded, "You got it." He agreed.

"Are you sure about this?" Shane questioned.

"Yes, the fewer people the better at the moment until the situation in the city is assessed no one else." She said and headed to her tent, "I do hope that no one was scratched or bitten prior to coming here." And with that she disappeared inside.

Merle got up from where he was and followed after Marlena, the others watching him as he followed her, he wasn't sure her going to the city was sitting well with him, "I don't like this." He said to her as he entered.

"It's all good Merle, been through worse." She told him, "But you reckon you could do me a favour?"

"Anything doll."

"Keep an eye on the truck while I'm gone?"

"You takin' the MSFV?"

"Yeah, I'm going to empty it a little and I'll need you to keep an eye out." She explained.

"When they go to sleep, you'll move everything?"

Marlena nodded, "Yeah, I have a lot of stuff Merle, you know what a military zone is like with provisions and I've got pretty much all of it stuffed into those two vehicles from just the one I was in."

"Lock boxes?"

"Yep, I ain't trustin' no one Merle, they're code locked so there will be no one trying to pick the locks."

"Where ya gunna put 'em?" Merle wondered, there wasn't really anywhere that they could be secured even though they were secure themselves.

"You reckon you and your mate have enough strength between ya's to get them up a tree in a commo net?" She wondered.

Merle let out a snort, "That's ma baby brother I went and told ya about." He said, "Darylena."

"Then there is enough strength between the two of you then." Marlena laughed.

"How far out do you want it?"

Marlena paused in thought, "Not too far out, but in an area that has a lot of foliage to cover the net a little as well."

"Consider it done." Merle said, "We'll come by round 3am and get started?"

"Yeah but what if they put someone on watch?"

Merle ran a hand over his balding head, "If it's the old man, I don't think he'll say anything much, otherwise we could rig it up over the cliff with the heavy duty rope." He offered an alternative and since my truck was right by the cliff that met the water we wouldn't be seen.

"I'll take the night vision binoculars down to the water and see if it'll be seen from the edge of if there's a crevice or nook to settle it in." Marlena said and grabbed the binoculars, "I'll be back in a few." She said and disappeared out the back of the tent were no one could see her and she hurried down to the water's edge and scoped out the cliff and moved into the water to have a better look and saw there was an out cropping of rocks that would hide the gear nicely.

Walking out of the water slowly so as not to splash, Marlena went back to the camp and slipped back into her tent to see that Merle had been joined by his brother, "What's the verdict?"

"There's an area that's covered by an area of rocks poking out, it'll keep it all out of others view." She explained, "It'd probably be the best place until we no longer need the MFSV or if I could find another secure vehicle."

"Sounds good, we'll get it done tonight then. See you at 3." Merle said and he and his brother left the tent and Marlena settled down to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey there, here is chapter 2. I hope that people are enjoying what I am writing.

* * *

The sun was just breaking over the quarry as Marlena walked out of her tent and looked around the camp to see most families camped out near the fire and Shane was walking around the perimeter, locating Glenn she went over and started to shake him awake so that they could leave.

"Huh?" Glenn questioned sleepily as he looked up at her, "Oh right, I'll be a sec, just gotta go pee." He told her and climbed out of his sleeping bag and headed a little into the wood to do that and was back to Marlena a little later.

"You got a weapon?" She questioned as she led him over to the MSFV.

Glenn rubbed at his head through his ball cap, "Nah, didn't know what would be best." He explained.

Marlena nodded, "No worries, I've got some in the MSFV that you can use, also a gun with a silencer but only use that in dire circumstances alright." She told him and climbed into the driver's side after putting in the code to open the vehicle and Glenn jumped in as well, "What did you do to know the city so well?" She asked as they headed out of the quarry to the city.

"Pizza delivery." Was the short answer.

Marlena gave an impressed nod, "Some people don't know the value of a pizza delivery guy, and you really do know the best ways around the city." She said complementing him, "You are definitely the best person to be with me, now where is the best place to go for the camping supplies we need?"

Glenn explained what route to take in to the city, changing it when necessary due to the dead taking up the roads, it was slow going but slow was better than being overrun by them, an hour later and a street free of walkers at the moment they came to a sporting goods store. Marlena knocked on the door and waited for any walkers that were inside to start for the front of the store so that they could be taken care of. A couple of minutes later a couple of the dead stumbled out the door that she was holding open and Glenn took care of them with his spiked bat that Marlena gave him.

"Just keep an eye out, check under shelves since those that are cut in half or what not can only crawl." She warned him and entered the store and grabbed a trolley and started to walk around the store, Glenn doing the same and they split up, "Grab everything and anything, even if you don't think it can be used, I can guarantee that it can be used." She said and went about her business gathering what she could from the store.

There wasn't as much as she would have liked in her trolley but she managed to get some more arrows for a crossbow, so they would go to Daryl, and a compound bow and some arrows for it as well as a few hunting knifes that were kicked under the counter. Marlena headed to the front of the store and saw Glenn waiting for her with a couple of tents and odds and ends.

"Not as fortuitous as I was hoping." Glenn mumbled, "But there is another store down the road a little so maybe we could get them from there." He said as they went out and loaded what they had in the MSFV and continued down the road to the next shop Glenn indicated but from the look of the store it had already been raided so they continued on, "Is there anywhere you can think of?" He asked.

Marlena paused in thought, there was a couple of places that they could go around in the city, but the state of them is the million dollar question, "The other military areas that were set up around the city, there was only the one refugee camp but there were other military areas set up to help take care of the dead."

Glenn let out a rush of air, "Alright I suppose it can't hurt to find a high point near them and check the area out with the binoculars."

Marlena snorted, "You shoulda joined the military kid." She told him, "Not many people would think like that." She said and Glenn blushed a little at the praise.

Marlena pulled up in an alleyway near a fire escape and went to the cargo area of the MSFV and opened the top hatch where the gun turret sat and climbed on top, Glenn following behind and they climbed up the ladder that ran up the side of the building and made it to the top and over to the side that the camp was on. Marlena grabbed her binoculars and took a look out at the camp and saw only a few of the dead roaming around.

"How's it look?"

"Not too bad considering, we should be able to get to the trailers with no trouble, but it'd be best if we use the top hatch to get in and out cause it's harder for them to climb the MSFV." She told him.

"Can you see any other camps from here?" He asked, "Or anywhere else that we need to go?"

Marlena took a look around the area and saw a pharmacy that they could have a look in to see if there was anything left and a thrift shop but that was about all, "Pharmacy and thrift shop before the base but that's it."

Glenn nodded, "Well let's get to it, I want to get in and out as quick as possible." He said and headed back to MSFV, Marlena following behind him and they headed off to the two stores, getting in and out quickly, happy to find quite a lot of stuff that should have been looted by now but hadn't been, maybe because of the amount of dead loitering about, more medicine for the group and some clothing and shoes for those back at camp if needed.

Marlena and Glenn both sat in the MSFV taking deep breaths as they looked over the camp before they headed slowly into the area and over to the first of the many trailers, "What's in this one?"

"It's probably food and water in the first few trailers, then weapons and medical, maybe clothing or bedding as well somewhere." Marlena said heading back to the turret and climbing through and waited for Glenn to join her before she moved over to the trailer and lifted the 'sunroof' and peered in and saw no dead in there and shimmied her way through the hole and came face to face with boxes of MRE's, "Stay there Glenn and I'll pass the boxes to you to load into the MSFV." She said as she passed the first box up.

Glenn and Marlena worked in silence as they took the MRE's and loaded them into the MSFV, the dead hadn't noticed them at the moment and they were more than happy with that because it meant that they could get done quickly and move on to the next trailer, it was full of all sized bottled water, that swiftly joined the MRE's, next trailer had some camping tents – 2, 3, 5 etc. man tents that they loaded up along with a couple of camping stoves, kero and kero lamps and some gas bottles.

"We've hit the jackpot with this camp." Glenn said excitedly as we loaded up the weapons that were left behind, along with the explosives as well which swiftly, but very, very carefully went with the rest of the items. Last but not least was the medical trailer, it looked like it had just been stocked, everything was pretty much still there so they grabbed all of the tubs of supplies and stored them as well, soon enough the trailers were empty and in the MSFV and it was stocked to the brim so badly that they had to chance going for the side doors to get in.

"I know this may sound callous but do you think that maybe we should get the weapons and medical things from the other camps so that we have them just in case?" Glenn questioned as he pulled on his ball cap.

"This world is now the survival of the fittest Glenn, extreme edition, we do whatever it takes to survive now and if that means that we go and get all the weapons and medicine then so be it." Marlena responded and headed to the second camp to do the same thing there but were lucky enough to find in one of the trailers some feminine hygiene products aplenty, but there wasn't enough room in the MSFV so from the top of one of the trailers Marlena looked around the base for transport, "Do you know how to drive?" She asked Glenn.

"What is it that you are thinking of having me drive?" He wondered.

"Do you think that you would have trouble driving a truck?"

"Is it a manual?"

"Nah, this one is an auto unlike the large one back at camp, it also has another MSFV on the back of it that could be really useful to hide in if we get caught in a mess of those things." She told him.

Glenn nodded, "Yeah I can do that, would there be anything in the tray?"

Taking a look around Marlena moved off of the trailer and climbed down, they were free of walkers for the moment so she moved quickly over to the truck and brought it over to the trailer so that could be loaded too, and she moved around to see what was in the tray and found some more fuel sitting there, "Got some more fuel here, it'll keep us going for a while." She said and went back over to the loaded MSFV and moved it back so the truck can be moved forward to load up the MSFV.

Glenn and Marlena moved quickly through the trailers grabbing what would be needed and then they moved onto the next camp and repeated the process with the last two before they actually took a break to have something to eat and drink. Everything they wanted to accomplish that day was done and they could kick back for a little while, but that didn't last long when gun shots erupted from behind them, hitting the second MSFV, this caused them to jump in their respective vehicles and haul ass out of the city, losing any tails that they might have gained thanks to Glenn's knowledge about the city and they made their way back to the quarry at 1600 hours much to the relief of the rest of the camp.

"How'd it go?" Shane questioned as he came over to Glenn and Marlene.

"We got a hell of a haul." Glenn responded, almost giddy, "We hit the outer military camps that were also set up and got a lot of supplies."

That didn't sit well with Shane and some of the others, "The camps had been overrun Shane and we're the ones in the end that are going to need the things that we brought back more than the dead could. But any runs into the city from here on out should wait a few weeks, we got shot at as we were leaving by a group of men. They didn't have vehicles and we took evasive manoeuvres in making sure that they didn't follow us." Marlene explained.

"So what did ya get us doll?" Merle questioned coming over to join the party since the whole camp was standing around them.

Marlene went to the MSFV and went to the front seat and grabbed the bolts and knives and threw them over to Merle and Daryl knowing that they would put them to use, "Use 'em well." She told him with a smile and Merle laughed.

"What about us?" Carl questioned pushing in front of his mum.

"That's where I come in." Glenn said and went to the back of the truck and pulled out a container and set it in front of Carl to open. Carl called out excitedly to the other kids once he opened it and showed them the comic books, board games and cards that were inside and they all hurried off to one of the tables to play a game.

"What else did you get?" Amy piped up.

Marlena and Glenn went to their respective MSFV's and opened them up for everyone to have a look at what was inside and they all let out cheers at what they saw and started to pull out what was inside, "Leave the weapons and medical supplies in there, it's the safest place for them until everyone has been taught to use them properly." Marlene spoke up as they pulled everything out.

"Where should we put the food?" Andrea questioned.

"For now, since it's the biggest, put it all in my tent until we can clear out the MSFV then we'll keep the food and water in one of them so that if we have to haul ass we won't leave the food behind." Marlene explained and everyone nodded in agreement to that and stacked it up in one place.

Once both MSFV's were cleared out, the food and water was put into the one attached to Glenn's truck along with the camping and survival supplies and the medicine and weapons were put back into Marlena's and it was locked tight. Only she and Glenn knew the codes to the MSFV's and that wouldn't change, if needed Marlene would change the code so that only she had it to protect the provisions.

"So what's the status on people knowing about shooting?" Marlene questioned as everyone took a seat around the fire pit, "I know Merle can so I'm guessing his brother can too." Both brothers had headed into the woods to hunt for some fresh meat to eat.

"I'm a… was a sheriff's deputy." Shane said.

"Recreational shooting." Dale added.

"My husband taught me." Lori said softly, her voice thick with emotion, "He was Shane's partner."

"I can shoot too." T-Dog offered.

"So that's 7 altogether then." Marlena said and rubbed a finger over her lip, "Alright, those that want to learn, we'll set up an area and use silencers, but it's voluntary." She told everyone.

"I would like to." Morales spoke up and Glenn raised his hand as well but no one else did.

"Alright, we'll get started tomorrow." Marlena agreed, "Now was there anyone on watch last night?"

"Both Shane and I were." Dale spoke up, "Just because we think we're safe right now doesn't mean that won't change."

Marlena nodded, "I agree, we'll take a four man watch, 6 hours each who wants to go first?"

"I'll go first since I'm already kind of doing that anyway." Dale said and with that he went back to the RV and climbed on the top to continue on with his watch.

"How long has he been up there?"

"Two hours already." T-Dog spoke up, "I'll take watch in 4 and relieve Dale."

"Who wants squirrel and rabbit for dinner?" Merle called out as he and Daryl walked back into camp, said animals slung over their shoulders, "It ain't much but its meat." He said and threw them down on a log that he was going to use to gut and skin the kills.

"I'll go and get some water." Carol said softly and headed down to the water with a large pot.

"I'll get some more wood." Lori said and Amy followed to help, the fire was already going but it needed to be a little hotter to get the water boiling. Marlena had managed to pick up a tripod that would sit over the fire and the pot would hang from a hook, kind of like a cauldron.

"I looked inside one of the boxes and saw some herbs and stocks so I'll get them." Jacqui said and with Glenn headed over to the MSFV to get said items to season the food and grab whatever else she could think of while there.

Marlena sighed and lent back in the chair that she had managed to pick up while they were out, she had done her bit for the day and here she thought that she was going to be on her own for quite a while but was glad for some company, well mostly glad for it, there were some people that she could do without.

"Wanna tell me how you're alive darlin'?" Merle said softly as he and Daryl skinned their kills.

"Just be happy that I am Merle." Marlena said just as softly as she looked over at the older man, "It's not really something I want to think about with the dead walking about the place."

"A'rite darlin' but if ya ever wanna talk come n hunt me down." Merle offered.

Marlena gave him a small smile, "I will Merle."

Merle threw down the last squirrel and wiped his hands on a rag, "Get the meat to the women folk Darylena." He said and disappeared to their tent and was inside for a while as Daryl went over to the fire to give it to the others to cook.

Marlena looked over at Merle and Daryl's tent, she just knew that Merle was doing drugs, something he used to do when they were overseas, and it seems that it was something he did before he joined. Marlena had the thought that joining the military wasn't Merle's choice ultimately and he only did it for the thrill of the hunt so to speak, "He still using?" She asked Daryl in a hushed voice as he walked passed her.

Daryl looked at Marlena in shock that she knew what his brother was doing in their tent right now, "Yeah."

Marlena sighed and let her head fall back, "God damnit, he's going to be a bitch when he can't get anymore."

"Is there anything you can do to help him?"

Marlena shook her head, "Not until there's nothing left, then I can help him through the detox." She explained.

Daryl nodded and walked away from Marlena, chewing on the pad of his thumb, a nervous tick that he has had since he was a kid. Marlena watched with sympathy as Daryl walked away, she already knew what Merle was like when he was high and it wasn't pretty and she also knew what he was like going through detox and that was even worse, but that was Merle he's a very volatile man all the time.

"Dinner's ready." Carl said as he ran over to Marlena, he was excited to try something different then pork, beef and lamb.

"Alright buddy I'm on my way." Marlena told him with a smile and followed after the pre-teen to get something to eat.

Everyone was rubbing their full bellies, some a little perturbed that they had just eaten squirrel but meat was meat now and there wasn't much that could be done, "Not the worst thing I've eaten." Marlena spoke up after excusing herself from the burp that had escaped.

"What is the worst thing you've eaten?" Sophia asked, her voice soft and delicate.

"Witchetty grub or crickets." Marlena stated, "The grub kinda wiggles down your throat while trying to chew it and crickets are crunchy." Everyone pulled a face at the information and Marlena laughed, "Sometimes that's what you have to do to survive in the wilderness."

"Was that a part of your training?" Louis asked.

Marlena nodded, "Yep, it's a mandatory training subject, it's something that is going to be getting a lot of practice now."

"Can you teach us?" Eliza questioned.

"Course I can, we'll start tomorrow with mushroom and berry hunting so I'll teach you what's safe to eat by looking at them." She told them, she was glad that she had something to do, even if it was teaching the kids how to survive off of the land, "Actually I might have something for you kids, hang on." She said and hurried over to her tent and after digging through a box came back to the fire to give the kids what she had in hand, "I'll help you learn to use these as well, a compass will help when you're stuck not knowing which way is North." She explained handing out the compasses to the children and made sure that they put the cord around their necks and tucked it into their shirts.

"Thank you." The kids said in stereo and showed the items to their parents who smile happily back at them.

"Did you happen to pick up any radios or anything like that?" Shane asked.

Marlena looked at Shane with wide eyes, she wasn't entirely sure if she and Glenn found anything like that, but some of the boxes were sealed and not labelled so it was hard to tell, "We'll have to go through the boxes tomorrow cause I'm not too sure about that, a lot of stuff is in solid coloured containers so you can't see what's inside." She explained.

Shane nodded, "Alright, we'll get on that tomorrow and hopefully we'll find some pen and paper too so we can write down how much of each thing we have."

"We're good for pen and paper, I have some of that in my tent." Marlena explained, "Also starting tomorrow I want to check everyone over, a basic medical so then that way we can find out who may need more of certain foods and what not." She said, talking to the whole camp, "Families can come together, like mother and daughter, it'll save time that way." Some of the people at the camp seemed a little put out by that, "I need to know your condition _now_ because it hasn't been too long since the outbreak you're all at a healthy level at the moment but in a few weeks that might change and I might need to give shots, get vitamins that sort of thing, this medical is for the best."

"Who would do you?" Ed leered.

"Merle." She said point blank, "He knows what to do and he's had to do it for me before."

Snorts of disbelief went around the fire from all present and Marlena let out a growl, they didn't know Merle, all they were looking at was the outside and the outside screamed red neck, just like Daryl, but she knew there was more to Merle and probably Daryl as well, "Ever heard the expression 'Don't judge a book by its cover'?" She questioned them, "Just remember, if the Dixons stick around they would be the ones providing for you. They would be risking their lives while hunting for food for you." She told them firmly, "Ya don't have ta like 'em but you sure as hell better thank them next time they bring fresh meat." And with that Marlena walked off to her tent and turned in for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Marlena walked out of her tent, some clothes, a towel and a portable shower curtain and poles in her arms, and headed down to a smallish pond that was rocked off from the rest of the water where people could clean up. She set up the poles and attached the curtain, at least there would be a little bit of privacy, but it would be better going two at a time so that one could be on watch while the other bathed. Leaving the curtain open on the backside, Marlena stripped down and settled into the water with some soap and started to scrub off the muck from the previous couple of days and was out of the water within 20 minutes and in clean clothes and headed back to camp.

"Where were you?" Shane questioned from the top of the RV.

"Down at the water having a wash, I set up an area where there is a kinda rock pool type area that's apart enough from the main supply and put a curtain up but make sure people go in two's at least." She explained.

Shane nodded, "Alright, I'll let people know as they wake up. I think some people really want a scrub down." He said with a smile.

"It's just temporary, I'm pretty sure that there is a solar shower in the stuff we got so I want to set that up when we find it." She explained.

Shane all but groaned in delight at the thought of a warm shower and Marlena laughed and went to her tent to put her dirty clothes over on one side of the tent where they could be washed later and went through a box for some pen and paper to write up what supplies they had and for her medical reports. She also grabbed a permanent marker to write numbers on the boxes so that it was easier to find things.

It was still early, Marlena having had gotten up before dawn, so she went over to the MSFV that held the food, water and other supplies and got a start on pulling out the boxes and putting them to the side and once everything was out she began to open the boxes a couple at a time and started going through and writing down what was in there.

"Ya want some help darlin'?" Merle questioned as he and Daryl came over to where she was.

"Please, probably get through this quicker with help. No one else has woken up yet so I've been on my own for the last 25 minutes." She explained and handed some paper over to Merle and Daryl, "Get started on that lot over there, once done place a number on there, I'm up to 4 but that's with food and water, I think that stuff is more survival gear and stuff." She explained.

Merle nodded and grabbed the items and went about his business of cataloguing what they had in the boxes that he was assigned, leaving some of the things out if they were something that could be used by the camp, like the solar shower and cook tops.

It was about 9 o'clock if Marlena's watch was right when people started to get up and go about their business and getting breakfast on before they even thought about going over and helping the Dixon's and Marlena with what they were doing and by the time that happened they were pretty much done with it.

"So how are we looking?" Dale questioned as he came over.

"Not too bad, we'll do pretty well for quite a while if we ration properly, that's not including the MRE's, they'll last us a while too. But that's just the supplies from the bases and not including what everyone else brought, so we need to go through all of that too." Marlena explained as she stood from the ground, brushing the dirt from her bum as she did.

"Good to know." Dale smiled, "When would you like us to start with the medicals?" He asked.

"After everyone's had their breakfast and I'd like to start with the families' first if you could let them know." She told him and went back over to the tent so that everything was set aside for when the people began to come in.

* * *

It had been 2 months since the camp was set up and they had been clear of walkers, the name that was given to them unanimously by the campers, watches were going smoothly, everyone doing their jobs that were given, except for Ed, he wouldn't get off of his fat ass and do anything except berate Carol and the other women in the camp but Marlena. He had tried his hand at pushing her around and ended up with a black eye, split lip and cracked ribs, she wouldn't take any crap from that man at all and if she ever saw him lay his hands on his wife and child he wouldn't be alive much longer and she told Carol that much to the woman tearful mutterings.

It was funny how at the end of the world, it was the woman's job to do the cooking and cleaning, the only men that really did anything were Merle and Daryl who provided meat for the camp where as the rest of the men were either on watch or sitting down watching the goings on of the camp and women folk.

Glenn was looking over a street map of stores that were in Atlanta, hoping to find somewhere they could scavenge when the time came and the easiest ways in and out of the city. He was good at what he did and Marlena was impressed with how well he thinks it out, even going as far as to write it all down along with contingencies.

The food had dwindled down but there was still quite a lot left, but what they were running out of what the bases didn't have much of was feminine products so a run into the city soon was needed or it wouldn't be pleasant but since things like that weren't being made anymore they would have to find other ways to sort out that problem when the time came. There was also the issue for some people of clothes, apparently what Glenn and Marlena had gotten weren't good enough for some people, it frustrated Marlena and all she wanted to do was yell and shake the idiots that they were in the apocalypse and they should just be happy with what they've got and it was up to Glenn and Marlena to go and get these things, thought she vetoed a lot of things that were on the list, like bloody make-up.

"Is there anything else that you can think of that we need?" Glenn questioned.

Marlena shook her head, "Nah, half of the stuff on here isn't needed either, and some people are just being superficial and want to hold onto their old life." She grumbled, "I'm going to go over and see if there is anything that Merle and Daryl need." She said and at Glenn's nod she headed over to the brother's camp.

"Hey sugar tits." Merle called out as she came over, "What can we do ya fer?"

"Glenn and I are heading into town soon, is there anything that the two of you need or want me to keep an eye out for?" She questioned taking a seat on the log near Daryl.

"Ya got any combat boots in your stuff?" Merle questioned as he turned over one of his feet and there is a hole in the sole.

"Yeah, got a few pairs, all different sizes." She responded, "Anything else otherwise?"

"Whatever hunting gear you can get, snares, a vest, that sorta thing. Maybe some more shirts and tanks if ya can get 'em." Daryl mumbled and then disappeared into the woods.

Marlena looked over at Merle, "Anything else that he may want or you?" She made sure.

"Some pants and socks, but that's about it anything else is up to you." Merle told her.

"Alrighty, I'll see what I can do." She said and started to walk off.

"Hey Sugar tits?" Merle called, Marlena turned back to him, "If ya think ya can, get another MSFV, I'm thinking we'll need it." He told her.

Marlena frowned slightly, "I don't remember seeing any more at the bases, not of the MSFV anyway but I think there were a couple of armoured personnel carriers." She explained, "They would be good as well to move the people about."

"See if the bases have any more fuel barrels if ya can find 'em, we're going to need them." Merle said.

"I'll see what I can do Merle but it's possible it's been taken by those guys a few months ago." She told him, "We might not find anything and it also depends on how active the walkers are but I'll try and get into the lock up area." She said and walked back over to Glenn, "So when are we going to do this?"

"We could go now, it's not too late in the day." Glenn responded.

"I'll see if Merle can't drive us to the city limits, I want to see about picking up another couple of armoured vehicles if we can." She explained to him.

Glenn smiled up at Marlena, "Sounds good, we'll hit the bases first then."

"Alright, get your gear and I'll get Merle and we'll be off." Marlena said and headed back over to the Dixon's camp and spoke quickly to Merle before going back to her camp and grabbing her gear and the three headed to the city.

"Good luck darlin', we'll hopefully see you soon with the trucks." Merle said as the two got out.

Marlena laughed, "And I suppose that you call dibs on one of them?" She asked.

"You bet your skinny white ass I do." Merle responded and started to turn the truck, "Also if ya find any smokes I'll be grateful." He called out the window as he drove off.

Marlena shook her head and shouldered her bag before heading off to the city with Glenn following behind her, "He really is something isn't he." Glenn commented.

"No kidding." Marlena snorted, "Lead the way Glenn, you know the routes better than I do." She said and let Glenn take the lead.

The sun was beginning to set when they left the city with their haul along with the 3 armoured vehicles that they had managed to find, being towed behind large trucks that were stocked full of fuel, hopefully the fuel would be enough to get them by when they needed to, they had also gotten all of the provisions that they had been asked to get, though the stupid items like make-up were left behind but the dope plant that Marlena had found and secreted away was definitely going to be needed.

They got back to the quarry just as the sun disappeared behind the rock walls and pulled up to a stop, the group moving to crowded around them to get what they had asked for, though a couple of people were going to be very disappointed they didn't get their make-up.

"You got me my ride sugar tits." Merle crowed as he came over, "Thanks darlin'." He said and went to unhook one of the armoured vehicles.

"Why did you bring more of those things, we don't need them." Shane spoke up.

"These one's are different from the others Shane, if we ever run into a hoard of those things, haul ass to these babies, they are armoured personnel carriers so there is enough room for about 20 people comfortably. These are better than the cars against walkers." Marlena patiently explained, "So it might be prudent for a couple of the cars to be left behind if it ever comes to it and people travel in these babies."

Shane shook his head, "They'll use up too much fuel, fuel that we don't have."

Marlena was really starting to get sick of Shane's alpha male personality and over all 'king of the zombie apocalypse' in their little camp they had going on, and the fact that women had to do all the cleaning and cooking while the men sat around doing nothing. Or in Shane's case, fucking Lori in the woods, "We have all we need fuel wise as long as we use it wisely and only use one car to go to the city. We'll be fine and I'm sure that a lot of people here would prefer something safer than a car that the windows could be smashed in."

A murmur went around the camp at that, some of the families had seen what the walkers could do to cars if there were people inside of them and agreed with the thought of having the vehicles there that would be able to protect them securely if it ever came to it.

"Now an FYI, some of the things on the list were just stupid so Glenn and I didn't bother getting them because they aren't needed at the end of the world." Marlena informed everyone, a couple of them knowing that it was them she was talking about and sneered at her not happy that they didn't get what they wanted.

"You got what everyone else wanted, but you couldn't get what we wanted, that's bullshit." One of the girls spoke up, she was dressed as though she was going out clubbing, and that was every damn day.

"Because we're fighting for survival now kiddies the walkers aren't going to care what you look like and you won't make an attractive corpse anyway so getting shit like make-up isn't worth the time and effort for Glenn and I to get so get fucked darlin'." Marlena snapped as she grabbed a few things that she was going to give to Merle and Daryl.

"Who are they for?" Shane questioned.

Marlena rolled her eyes, "These are hunting supplies that Merle and Daryl asked for me to look for." She explained as she went over to Merle and handed him the two large duffle bags, "Got ya some extra stuff in there too." She whispered so the others wouldn't hear them, "And no it's not drugs." She said with an eye roll and walked off to give out the rest of the stuff or store it.

* * *

It had been a few weeks since he had woken up to this ongoing nightmare and he was heading to Atlanta but with running out of fuel and then walking, while still injured, it was taking its toll of him. He was lucky that he managed to come across a horse that he could use to get him to Atlanta and to the safe zone.

Rick Grimes was a man on a mission and we was going to see it through even if he doesn't find his family alive at least he would have his answer and could figure something out from there, but he needed to know if they were alive first and the refugee centre was the place he needed to go.

Looking out in front of him he saw the Atlanta skyline and the graveyard of cars that were lined up trying to get out of the city and by the looks of some of the cars, some of the people in them didn't make it out in time, Rick was thrown out of his thoughts as a helicopter flew overhead into the city and he kicked the horse into a trot chasing after the chopper only to be stopped by a large group of walkers, he pulled out his colt and started shooting, losing the bags of guns as he went down as the walkers grabbed at the horse, leaving the horse and the bag he hurried over to the tank and crawled under it, hoping to get away from the dead and noticed a hatch just as one of them grabbed his leg and aimed to bite it he quickly shot it and climbed up into the tank, closing the door behind him he had some time to take a breather.

Rick moved over to the dead soldier and checked him out when the soldier woke up and tried to bite him, Rick swiftly shot the soldier and the bullet ricocheted around the tank causing Rick to duck as it came his way and settled down, Rick grabbed the gun and the grenade that was hanging there and checked the clip to see what there was left.

"Hey you, dumbass in the tank." A voice came over the radio, "You cozy in there?"

Rick scrambled over to it quickly, "Hello?"

"There you are, you had me wondering." The voice replied.

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see me right now?" Rick rapidly questioned.

"Yeah, I can see you. You're surrounded by walkers, that's the bad news."

"There's good news?" Rick asked hopefully.

"No."

Rick sighed and rubbed a hand over his forehead, "Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned here."

"Oh man you should see it from over here. You'd be having a major freak out."

"Got any advice?" Rick questioned, he couldn't see a way out of this situation.

"I'd say make a run for it." The voice told him.

"That's it, 'make a run for it'?" Rick asked in disbelief.

"Look, my way isn't as dumb as it sounds, you've got eyes on the outside here. There's one geek up top the tank but the others have climbed down and joined the feeding frenzy where the horse went down. With me so far?"

"So far." Rick said.

"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you move now while they're distracted, you stand a chance." The voice explained, "Got ammo?"

"In the duffle bag I dropped out there, and guns. Can I get to it?" Rick questioned.

"Forget the bag okay? It's not an option. What do you have on you?"

"Hang on." Rick said as he check everything over again, "Yeah, I've got a Beretta with one clip, 15 rounds."

"Make 'em count. Jump off the right side of the tank keep going in that direction. There's an alley up the street, maybe 50 yards. Be there."

"Hey, what's your name?" Rick questioned.

The voice groaned, "Have you been listening? You're running out of time."

"Right." Rick said and dropped the receiver and grabbed a metal pole and opened the top of the tank and took out the walker that was right there, he hurried down the tank and ran toward the alley the other was talking about, shooting any of the walkers as they got too close to him as he ran and ran into a kid.

"Whoa, not dead." He cried out, "Come on, come on back here." He said running toward a fire escape, "What are you doing?! Come on." He exclaimed as he climbed and Rick quickly followed after him. Both get to the landing and look down, taking a breather from their run, "Nice moves there Clint Eastwood." He mocked, "You the new sheriff coming to clean up the town?" He asked, hoping that by doing what he did that the other would maybe someday do the same for him.

"It wasn't my intention." Rick huffed.

"Yeah, whatever, you're still a dumbass."

Rick held his hand out to Glenn, "Rick, thanks."

"Glenn, you're welcome." He responded as he continued to climb to the roof.

"Were are we heading?" Rick questioned as they headed over the rooftops.

"To the department store where the rest of my group is and they probably won't be happy." Glenn warned him, "But one of them will understand why I did what I did." He explained as he climbed down another fire escape and poked his head around the corner, "Got four walkers in the ally." He spoke into the walkie and in seconds two men came out in protective gear and took care of the walkers giving Rick and Glenn sometime to get inside along with the other two and secure the door.

"You son of a bitch." Andrea snapped at Rick, aiming her gun at his head, "We ought to kill you."

"Chill out woman and back off, making more noise is going to draw even more of them this way." Marlena snapped as she looked Glenn over for bites and scratches and then went over and did the same for Rick and came across his bandage, "You bit?" She questioned.

"No, no it was a gunshot wound before all of this happened." Rick explained, "You can have a look if you like." He told her and Marlena took a peek behind the bandage and saw that he was telling the truth, "I woke up not long ago from a coma."

Something sparked in Marlena's mind, "You're Rick Grimes then?" She questioned.

Rick gave her a suspicious look, "I am, but how do you know that?" He asked.

"You'll see when we get back to camp." She responded and walked away to do what she was doing before he and Glenn came in.

"We're still dead because of you." Andrea sneered, she still hadn't lowered her gun.

"Then shoot him Andrea, but it isn't going to make a difference." Morales sighed and walked away.

"I don't understand." Rick spoke up.

Morales stopped walking, "Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving and the key to surviving is sneaking in and out on tiptoes. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K Corral." He explained.

"And your shooting just rang the dinner bell." T-Dog explained.

Rick sighed, running a hand over his face, "I'm sorry I was trying to flag the helicopter when I ran into a whole group of them things." He explained.

T-Dog snorted, "Helicopter? Man that's crap. Ain't no damn helicopter."

"You were hallucinating, imagining things, it happens." Jacqui told him gently.

"I saw it." Rick said adamantly, he knew what he saw.

"Hey T, try the C.B, see if you can contact the others." Morales spoke up coming back over to the small group.

"Others? The refugee camp?" Rick questioned, it's what he wanted to know about since coming here.

"Sorry to tell ya mate, but the refugee camp was overrun months ago, we got a group on the outskirts of the city." Marlena explained as she came back over with a full bag.

"Do you really think you should be telling him about the camp?" Andrea hissed.

Marlena rolled her eyes, "If he was going to do something to us he would have done it by now so take a chill pill." She turned to T, "How's the signal?"

"Got nothing, we should head for the roof, might get a better signal from up there." T-Dog explained and he headed for the stairs to access the roof.

As the group make their way up to the roof they can hear gun shots echoing and Marlena let out a groan and raced up the rest of the way to get to Merle before the others did so that she could try and talk him down from his high since she had noticed that he had had something that morning before they came out, "Bloody hell Merle, stop it right now." She snapped at him, hitting him over the back of the head.

"Fuck off sugar tits." Merle growled and pushed her back, "You should be more polite to a man with a gun." He said with a growl and went back to shooting.

Marlena goes to her bum bag and pulled out a needle with some fluid in it, she had packed it just in case something like this happened while out with Merle, it would make running a bit hard but once she had him back at the MSFV all would be good. With a sigh, Marlena quickly jabs Merle in the ass with the needle and injects him with the sedative, as it starts to work she guides Merle down to the ground so that he doesn't hurt himself, Merle looks at her with a dazed expression.

"Tha' fuck was that fer?" He slurred.

"You were being a controlling ass Merle and you know I won't stand for that shit." She told him and brought her canteen of water up to his lips so he could have some and then patted down his pockets and found the white powder she was looking for and looked at Merle with disappointment.

"He your husband?" Rick questioned as he picked up the rifle and checked it over after putting the safety back on.

Marlena snorted, "Ah hell no, he's just a stubborn ass that I served with." She explained, "Unfortunately he still has a stash." She told the sheriff and he seemed to understand exactly what she was eluding to and walked away to look over the edge and saw that the gathering walkers had grown bigger than it was when they were down stairs.

"Alright ya'll we're gunna have to head back down and get what we came here for and then find a way to haul ass outta here." Marlena called out to everyone, "We ain't going back empty handed, it's gunna be our last run into the city so gather what you can."

Andrea, Morales, Glenn and Jacqui headed back down stairs while Marlena walked over to T, "Any luck?"

"Nah, signals weak." He said and moved over to another part of the building to try for a better signal and finally got something and spoke quickly while they had the signal but couldn't hear anything come back, there was no sign from the others, "I don't know if they heard me." T-Dog grumbled as he walked back over.

"Well there isn't anything that they can do anyway. There's only Shane, Dale and Daryl there so they can't afford the man power." Marlena explained clapping the man on the back, "Head down and get what you need, I'll figure something out."

"No worries doc." T said and headed off back downstairs, Rick following after him.

"Make sure you get yourself something too Officer." She called after him, Rick wave a hand over his shoulder in acknowledgement before he disappeared and she turned back to where Merle was laid out, "I warned you about this trip Merle." She said sitting down next to the man.

"Yeah, yeah." Merle grumbled.

"You could have gotten us killed, even if Rick hadn't of started shooting off rounds when he went down." She told him firmly, "And then Daryl would have been alone."

Merle sighed and ran a hand over his face, "Yeah I know."

"Good, now that shot should wear off soon and I want you to behave Merle or I'll give you another one that will knock you out and I'll leave your old ass behind." She told him.

"A'rite, I'll play nice." He muttered.

"Thank you." Marlena said as she got up and went over to the edge of the building and had a look around to see what they could do, or even use to get away relatively unscathed but it wasn't looking too good, the MSFV was in the ally next to the building but there wasn't enough room for everyone to get in through the top because of all the stuff stuffed inside, there was barely any room for her to get in but she could do it.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey Everyone, sorry about the lack of update, but you get a bonus, I'm posting Two chapters of the story today so i hope that you enjoy what i have written.

Also just a warning, things get a little odd between Shane and Marlena later on in the story.

MaggYme: Lena is about 33 and has been in the military since she was 16. Merle is obviously a bit older, late 40's early 50's or something, but i've changed that so that he's about 43, so only ten years difference instead of the 15 to 20 years difference and I've put Daryl at around 38.

* * *

Rick looked around the department store and grabbed a bag from the stock and began to pack up some clothes since he didn't actually have anything with him but that gun bag and now that was lost as well, so he walked through and grabbed some shirts, pants, underwear, sturdy boots and some clothes for winter as well just in case when he noticed Andrea looking at something in the jewellery section.

"Sorry about the gun in your face." Andrea said as he walked up.

Rick shrugged and threw her a smile, "People do things when they're afraid."

"It wasn't totally unjustified, you did get us into this mess."

"If I get us out of it will that make up for it?" He asks.

"No, but it's a start." She said throwing him a smile.

"Do you see something that you like?" Rick asked going back to the reason he came over.

"No, not me, but someone else, my sister. She's still such a kid in some ways, Unicorns, dragons all that stuff but her favourite is mermaids, they rule. She loves mermaids." She explained to Rick as she fingered the necklace on the stand.

"Why not take it?" Rick questioned.

Andrea looks at him slyly, "There's a cop watching me." Rick chuckled, "Would it be considered looting?"

"I don't think that those rules apply anymore." He reminded her gently, Andrea smiled and grabbed the necklace and put it in her pocket.

"So anyone think of how we can get outta here?" Marlena questioned as she appeared in the main part of the store.

"What about under the streets? The sewers?" Rick offers.

Marlena shook her head, "No manhole cover in the alleys, so we'd have to go through the walkers to get to them."

"Maybe not, an old building like this, built in the 20's often had drainage tunnels into the sewers in case of flooding in the subbasement." Jacqui explained.

"How do you know that?" Glenn questioned.

"It's my job, was my job. I worked in the city zoning office."

"All we can do is check it out." Marlena said and they headed down into the subbasement to take a look to see if there really was a tunnel under the building.

"Is this it?" Morales asked as they looked down.

"Marlena and I have scoped this place out, it's the only place here that goes down but we've never gone down it. I mean who would?" Glenn said giving an awkward laugh as everyone turned their attention to him, Glenn knew what that meant, "Oh great."

"We'll be right behind you." Andrea offered.

"No you won't, not you." Glenn immediately responded turning to everyone.

"Why not? Don't think I can?" Andrea snapped.

Glenn ran a hand through his hair after taking off his hat, "I wasn't…"

"Speak your mind." Rick said putting a calming hand on his shoulder.

Glenn took a breath, "Look, until now Marlena and I always came here by ourselves… In and out, grab a few things… No problem. The first time we bring a group… Everything goes to hell. No offense. If you want me to go down this gnarly hole, fine… But only if we do it my way. It's tight down there. If I run into something and have to get out quick, I don't want you all jammed up behind me getting me killed. I'll take one person." He explained to the group and Marlena nodded along with what he was saying, they really shouldn't have come with a large group, Rick moved to go down when Glenn stopped him, "Not you either. You've got Merle's gun and I've seen you shoot. I'd feel better if you were out in that store watching those doors, covering our ass. And you've got the only other gun, so you should go with him." He said pointing to Andrea and then pointed to Morales, "You be my wingman. Jacqui stays here. Something happens, yell down to us, and get us back up here in a hurry." He explained and saw that Marlena had a proud look on her face.

"I'll go back up to the roof, see if there isn't a way out somehow that I missed before." She said knowing that Glenn had everything handled and headed back to the roof.

"Okay, everyone knows their jobs." Rick said and they all split up to do what Glenn had said as they saw Morales and Glenn head down the hole.

Glenn and Morales shine the flashlights around the hole looking for somewhere where they could find a way out and get back to the rest of the group. Finally they come up to a bolted gate and they shine the light through it, "Looks like Jacqui was right, we got ourselves a sewer tunnel." Morales muttered.

"Is there any way we can cut through it?" He questioned as he looked over the grate.

"If we had half a day and a blow torch, no problem. The hacksaw sure ain't going to cut through it." Morales responded and was startled back when a walker came to the grate with a rat in its mouth and tried to grab at the pair causing Glenn to let out a squeak of fear and the pair headed back out of the tunnel to tell the others that this wasn't the way out of the store.

Soon everyone congregated to the roof to discuss what they could do, "I've got the MSFV down there, I could try and lead some of these bastards from the door." Marlena offered, "Ain't much of a solution but it's something."

Rick looked out over Atlanta and saw a construction site not too far from where they were, "That construction site, there should be keys in the trucks and if they're not in the trucks they'll be nearby." He said pointing it out to the others.

"You'll never make it past the walkers." Morales reminded him.

Rick looked at Glenn, "You got me outta that tank."

"Yeah, but they were feeding, they were distracted." Glenn reminded him.

"Can we distract them again?"

"Right listen to him, he's onto something." Merle spoke up, he still hadn't moved from where he went down, "A diversion like on Hogan's Heroes."

Jacqui sighed, "God, give it a rest." She grumbled.

"Actually they're both right." Marlena spoke up, "We just need to figure something out."

"They're drawn by sound right?" Rick questioned.

"Yeah, like dogs they hear you and they come." Glenn said.

"What else?" Rick questioned, he hadn't been out in this mess as long as they had and didn't have the knowledge they did.

"Aside from they hear you? They see you, smell you and if they catch you they eat you." Morales explained.

Rick looked shocked, "They can tell us by smell?"

"It's kinda distinct Officer Friendly." Merle spoke up, "They smell like a rotting corpse and we don't."

This seemed to give Rick an idea and he heads back down to the store with a confused group following after him and saw that he was grabbing rubber gloves and long coats before handing them out to the others.

"Gunna let us in on the plan?" Marlena questioned.

"We're going to grab those walkers out in the alley and smear their blood and guts over these coats and walk to the construction site right beside them." He explained and saw green looking faces looking back at him.

"That's actually pretty smart, but I could just drive a couple of you on top of the MSFV." Marlena reminded him.

"But we still need something to transport everyone back to your camp don't you?" Rick questioned.

"Ya got me there Rick, with all the stuff we gathered there isn't any room for anyone else." Marlena said running a hand through her hair, "But what's the whole plan."

"Well we're going to have to get something loud to pull the walkers away from the loading bay, that's where I'll pull the truck up for everyone to get in. It'd be good if we could find something with an alarm and is fast enough that the walkers won't be able to catch up but still follow." Rick explained.

"Alright but once we're clear of the city, we'll need to pull over so I can kill the alarm so they don't follow us back to camp." Marlena said.

"You got it." Rick nodded and they went out to bring the walkers body into the room to start smearing the guts and blood over the coats.

Rick grabs the fire axe but before he could make a move he bent down and pulled the wallet out of the walkers pocked and looked through it, "Wayne Dunlap, Georgia licence, born in 1979 with $28 in his pocket when he died and a picture of a pretty girl, "With love, Rachael." He was like us, worrying about paying rent and bills or the superbowl. If I find my family, I'm gunna tell 'em about Wayne." He said throwing down the wallet and picking up the axe again.

Glenn picked up the wallet, "Uh, he was an organ donor." He muttered and Rick brought down the axe on the torso of Wayne, the smell and the squishing and crunching were getting to a few of the group, Glenn looked especially green as it happened. Rick hands the axe to Morales to keep going as his arms had gotten tired. "I'm gunna hurl." Glenn groaned turning from the sight.

"Alright, does everyone have gloves?" Rick questioned, "Don't get any in your eyes or on your skin." He reminded them as they all began to gather the blood and guts and started to smear it on Glenn and Rick.

"Oh God! Oh jeez." Glenn moaned, "Oh this is bad. This is really bad."

"Think about something else." Marlena spoke up, "Puppies and kittens."

"Yeah." T said as he picked up another handful and spread it, "Dead puppies and kittens." Upon saying this Glenn bends over to the side and throws up.

"That is just evil." Andrea scolded T, "What is wrong with you?"

All of the guts and what they could of the blood were all over Glenn and Rick, "So do we smell like them?" Rick asked.

"Oh yeah." Andrea says leaning back from the pair but hands over her gun to Glenn, "Just in case." She said as she tucked the gun into the waist band of his pants.

"Make sure that you're all ready and near the loading dock along with your bags so that we can get out of here as quick as possible." Rick told them.

"We'll be there." Marlena assured him as he and Glenn walked out the door into the street.

Everyone then rushed up to the roof to watch them as they went through the street that seemed to become even more filled with walkers than it was before as they watched a boom of thunder sounded from overhead and that caused the others to become concerned that they wouldn't make it to the site before the rain hit.

"Alright everyone, grab your bags, get down to the loading bay and wait for Rick, they're going to have to make a run for it if it starts to rain and then they won't have the protection anymore so we need to be ready." Marlena spoke up taking command of the situation and everyone moved to grab their bags and turned back once more to see that Glenn and Rick had made it to the site and watched the truck drive off.

"They're leaving without us." Andrea said in shock.

Merle shook his head, "Remember blondie, Officer Friendly said they needed to get a car to make some sound and then circle back 'round." He said, "Am I the only one that remembers that."

"Merle's right, now all of you haul ass to the loading bay." Marlena said clapping her hands at them to get moving when they finally decided to start moving down to the loading docks. Marlena headed over to the fire escape with the MSFV below, "I'll hang round till ya get outta there." She yelled at Merle and slid down the ladder and wiggled into the MSFV and started it up and moved it out of the alley since it was actually in the way of the loading dock.

Just as she pulled out, a red mustang came screeching around the corner and stopped in front of the now broken glass doors until the walkers noticed the wailing of the alarm and started to amble after the car with Marlena following behind and saw that the cube van reversed quickly into the loading bay to pick up the others, Marlena took another turn and saw where the bag of guns were laying, it seemed that the alarm of the mustang had thinned out the herd so she moved over and parked next to the bag and quickly bent down and grabbed the bag, more guns than what was already at camp isn't always a bad thing, especially since she kept most of the stuff locked up and hidden from the rest of the camp. The whole operation was a success and the three vehicles headed out of Atlanta leaving the walkers behind them after a couple of minutes the MSFV and mustang came to a stop and Marlena popped the hood to disconnect the alarm.

"See you back at camp Glenn." She said giving him a wink and he peeled out of the shoulder of the road and on the road back to camp. Marlena jumped back in the MSFV and followed after him with the cube van following behind her.

* * *

Glenn came to a halt in front of the R.V and was immediately pounced on by the other members of the camp, especially Amy, "Everyone's fine, they'll be here in a minute." He yelled over the commotion and within a few minutes the MSFV and a van pull up behind the mustang.

Rick sighed as he rested his arms on the steering wheel, they had gotten out of Atlanta and he wasn't any closer to finding his wife and son if the refuge centre had fallen they could be anywhere in Georgia right now.

"Come meet everyone." Morales said clapping Rick on the shoulder offering a little comfort.

Everyone hops out of the truck, family members greeting each other in relief that they were back and they were okay, Rick stayed in the truck for a few more minutes.

"I thought we had lost you folks for sure." Dale said as he embraced Morales.

"How'd y'all get out anyway?" Shane questioned the group.

"New guy, he got us out. Thought of something that neither Marlene nor I would have even thought of." Glenn explained.

"New guy?" Shane asked, a little on edge about someone new being at the camp.

"Yeah, crazy vato. Yo helicopter boy come and say hello." Morales called out to Rick and he hops out of the truck, "He's a cop just like you."

Rick walks over to the group running a hand over his head, everyone looks over to see him coming and the look on Shane's face changed when he saw who it was that had gotten out of the truck and it looked like only Marlena and Merle were the only ones to catch it as they exchanged looks.

Rick comes to a halt as he saw Carl, Lori and Shane, "Oh my God." He said falling to his knees as Carl came barrelling up to him.

"Dad, dad." He yelled as he launched himself into his dad's arms and Rick started to cry as he held his son close to him.

The group watches on in awe and happiness at the reunion between the family, Marlena had a giant smile on her face at the scene, she knew as soon as she had met the man who he was and after seeing Shane's face she also knew that there would be a change in dynamics around the camp.

"Shit ain't gunna be the same." Merle muttered to her.

"Yeah, no shit. Especially between Shane and Lori." Marlena agreed.

"Ya think he'll figure it out?"

"He won't want to. He'll know it happened but he'll ignore it." Marlena said with a sigh, "He's a good man from what I've seen so far and doesn't deserve that pain."

"How are you here?" Lori asked through sobs as she held both husband and son tight, she never thought she would see him again, thought he was dead, it's what Shane had told them. She looked over her shoulder and glared at Shane who was watching the happy reunion.

"Let's unpack the MSFV." Merle said nudging Marlena and headed over to the MSFV to unload what they had scrounged up in the beginning of their trip before they had gotten stuck in the department store. He and Marlena had split off from the others at the start to hit a few of the other stores near the department store before meeting back up with everyone else.


	5. Chapter 5

Marlena looked over the stocks that she had in the med tent, thankfully there hadn't been any need for much of the medical supplies and to her, that was a good thing, she turned at the slight whomping sound at the entrance and turned to see Rick standing there, she threw him a smile, "Hey what's up?" She questioned.

"Lori told me about the check-ups that you had done in the beginning and I thought that I had best get myself over here and checked out." He explained as he entered a few more feet into the tent.

"Of course, it's probably an idea that I check over that wound of yours as well." She nodded, "Strip down to your grundies and we'll get started." She ordered and grabbed up the book that said Grimes on the front which only had Lori and Carl in it, now it would have the whole family.

Once he had stripped down Marlena had him head over to the scales and height chart than sat him down to check his BP, eyes, nose, throat and respiratory before taking off the bandage and having a good look at the wound.

"So what happened?" She questioned, she hadn't been at the pit the other night when Rick had told his story, she had been down at the lake checking on the stocks she had decided to leave hanging over the cliff.

"State troopers called in back up from King County where Shane and I were from, they were chasing down some guys that had managed to escape from prison, a line of spike strips were across the road when they came through, the car went into a field and they came out shooting, I took a shot and ended up in a coma and woke up a few days ago now." He explained, "Spent the night I woke up in town with someone who explained what was going on to me, gathered the weapons from police storage and then we split up and I came here, so that was on day two of me waking up so I would say that this would be day three, maybe day four, I'm not too sure how long I was out when I was hit in the head with a shovel." He explained.

Marlena was thoughtful about the information that she had been given, "It sounds like someone was looking out for you at the hospital by changing your I.V every few days until they were either killed by walkers, other people or they hauled ass outta there." She mumbled as she gathered a few bandages and some sutures since it seemed he had ripped open the wound a little from his foray into Atlanta, "Your home is about 5 hours away right?" I questioned.

"Yeah about that." Rick responded, a little confused about the question.

"How intact do you think the medical supplies would be?"

Rick blinked at the questioned and looked back into his memory of waking up in the hospital, "I really can't say 100 percent, but it looked like a lot of stuff was left behind when it was abandoned."

Marlena nodded thoughtfully, "There is some stuff that I haven't been able to get here in Atlanta because the hospital is too badly over run, I want to make sure I have those supplies in a worse case scenario." She explained, "I didn't get them when we first got here because they were in unsecure buildings with walkers inside and I wasn't going to risk it just for a few stupid poles and I.V lines."

"It was pretty empty of walkers when I woke up and came out, there was a huge group of them boarded behind a door but it's possible that they would have broken through by now." He offered just as I tied off the not on the last stitch, cleaned it up again and wrapped the wound with clean bandages, "If you end up going, I want to go with you." He said adamantly, "I left a man and his son there, the father said he would make it this way soon after he taught his son to shoot properly but in all honesty I'm worried and this man saved me from becoming food."

Marlena gave Rick a small smile of understanding and waved over to his clothes, "Get dressed and I'll see what I can sort out, it's still early enough that we can get there and back by tonight." She said and headed out of the tent and went over to the Dixons camp ground, "Oi, Merle, you in there?" She called out shaking the tent.

"Wadda ya want?" Merle growled as he stuck his head out of the tent.

"Thinking bout a run, but it's a fair bit outta the way." She explained to him.

"How far?" He asked emerging from the tent.

"Bout five hours there and back, not counting the time it'd take looking around for shit." She told him, "I talked to Rick about the hospital he woke up in, he said it was pretty devoid of walkers and may not have been raided too badly yet, I want to get those supplies I mentioned to you last time we were in the city and passed by the hospital."

Merle nodded and rubbed at his chin, "We could end up needing that stuff one day, it's better to have it and not need it than to not have it and need it." He agreed, "What's Officer Friendly got to say about the hunting in the area?"

"Dunno, but I could go and ask him, if there is bigger game there we'd be a bit better off than what Daryl has been able to find here." She muttered and slapped Merle on the back as she walked off and left him to get ready for the trip and talk to Daryl.

Marlena hurried over to where Rick was talking with Lori and she could see the displeased look on her face at what her husband was telling her was going to happen that day, she cleared her throat as she neared gaining their attention, "Merle wants to know what the hunting would be like around the town."

Rick gave a puff like laugh, "Honestly wouldn't know myself since I was not really into that kind of thing but a lot of others were, they'd go out a few miles outta town to the woods there, sometimes they got something other times not." He explained.

Marlena nodded, "Alright, shouldn't be too bad then, Daryl's probably better than those men and we'd be able to bring back a deer or something while we're out, meat is getting scarce here since we've been hunting it down for food." She mumbled and then headed over to where Glenn was and started to talk to him about the run they were about to undertake.

Many in the group weren't happy that they were heading out to King County, especially Lori and Shane who both loudly gave their opinion on what they were about to do but Marlena didn't really care about what they had to say about it, they weren't the kings of the fucking castle. Glenn, Merle, Daryl, Rick, T-Dog and Marlena climbed into the vacant MSFV with a spare fuel canister and started off for their five hour drive to King County.

It was a pretty quiet drive, only a few words here and there being passed around as the MSFV bolted down the road and ploughed through the vehicles that were abandoned there as they drove through to King County.

"What kind of supplies are you thinking of getting?" Glenn questioned finally.

"Mainly the I.V lines, more needles, I.V poles, sutures, smaller things like that. I just want to be as prepared as I can be." Marlena explained as they drove.

Glenn nodded, "Sounds fair, we could also maybe hit any stores that are there, put a stereo out the front of the bigger ones while we do the hospital run and then we can hit it back on the way out of there."

"I like the sound of that." Marlena agreed as they hit the County line and crossed into King County.

"Can we stop and see about Morgan first, it might be best of we can get an extra set of hands just in case." Rick spoke up from where he was seated next to Glenn.

"Do you know if he's still at the same place or if he had moved?" Marlena asked.

"We could check out the place they were holed up and if they aren't there when we get there we can leave a note to tell him to wait there and we'll come through on the way back." Rick offered in the way of an alternative.

"Alright we'll do that and then head to the hospital." She said and Rick quickly gave the directions on how to get to where Morgan and his son were, they arrived swiftly and piled out of the MSFV with Rick in the lead as they walked up to the door and he knocked on it softly.

"Morgan, it's Rick, are you in there?" He questioned through the door softly so that the walkers around them wouldn't hear them too soon.

The door quickly ripped open and a gun was pointing right at them with a very scared man at the end of the gun, "Rick?"

"Yeah Morgan, it's me." Rick responded raising his hand and resting it on the gun to lower it and he got a good look at Morgan, he didn't look like he was doing too hot.

"Get in, quick." Morgan said moving back and waving everyone in and quickly shut the door behind them.

"What's happened Morgan?" Rick questioned as they entered the dining room, "Also with me I have Marlena, Merle, Daryl, T-Dog and Glenn, everyone this is Morgan." He introduced quickly, "What happened?" He asked again.

Morgan's face looked like it had been broken with sorrow, "Duane and I just got back from a run, but… but Duane got bit on the arm just as we reached the door by 'her'." He explained, using an infliction when he said 'her'. Rick seemed to know who the 'her' was in this instant.

"How long ago was he bitten?" Marlena quickly questioned moving forward, "If it's on the arm, there is still time to save the kid." Morgan looked at her with a little bit of disbelief and a whole lotta hope.

"Follow me." He said and hurried to the bedroom where Duane was lying in bed reading a comic, it didn't look like the fever had set in yet so there should be enough time to do what Marlena was thinking of doing.

"How long ago?" Marlena questioned again as she pulled her bag off of her back.

"About 10 minutes, not even that." Morgan responded as Marlena sat on the bed and dug through her bag and grabbed the morphine, needle, tourniquet, suture kit, gauze and bandages, "What are you going to do?" He asked as he sat down next to his son and put a comforting arm around the teens shoulder.

"I'm going to cut his arm off." She responded point blank, "It's the only way to save his life now." She said as she grabbed the kids arm and held it firmly as she injected the morphine and unwrapped the bandages that were on his arm and pulled it off to examine the wound, the infection had only moved slightly up the arms, leaving plenty of room for the limb to be taken off.

"Who are you?" Duane questioned.

"Marlena and I'm a combat medic of the Military, or the now defunct military." She said as everything was laid out, "Your choice kid, die and turn or loose an arm. I know what one I would choose." She chuckled.

Duane gave a small smile, "The arm."

"You absolutely sure bud?"

"Yes ma'am." Duane said as his eyes started to flutter from the effect of the morphine and laid down on the bed so that he was comfortable.

Marlena let out a sigh as he started to drift off, "Merle, Daryl I'm going to need you guys to help with this, it needs to be over quick and I know that I haven't got the upper body to do it in about two goes and I need it to be done as quickly as possible." She explained to the two men and they looked at each other before Daryl pulled his bag off his back and pulled out a rather large and incredibly sharp hunting knife that looked more like a machete and Merle moved to where he could hold Duane down while Daryl cut through, Marlena believed this was the first time that Merle had back down on doing something and letting his brother do it instead.

Marlena pulled out a texta and quickly drew a line across where she wanted Daryl to aim for, "Hit either on that line or a little above it." She told him as she quickly pulled out clamps, sutures, gauze and bandages and then nodded to Daryl letting him know to go ahead when he was ready as she braced the arm against her leg.

Taking a deep breath Daryl raised the knife up and brought it down, dead on the line that was drawn and hit into the bone before yanking it out and going again with enough force that it went through the rest of the arm. He was covered in the blood of the teen as it squirted out with the two hits, Marlena was covered, the kid and some had gotten on Merle as well.

Marlena moved swiftly to clamp the veins and arteries, restricting the blood flow so that she could have them stitched before moving on to pulling the loose skin around the wound and then affix the gauze and bandages. Fastening the bandage Marlena wiped her hands on a less bloody part of the bed and brushed her hair out of her face, "All we can do now is wait and see if we got it in time." She told the man standing around her, "I'm pretty confident that we did, but we'll not know for now."

"Thank you." Morgan spoke up from where he was sitting just staring at his son.

"It was nothing, but we're going to have to get to the hospital, I only brought a little bit of morphine with me and he'll need some more as he starts to come around and also an I.V with some antibiotics to fight off any infection." Marlena explained as she readied another syringe of morphine and put it on the bedside table and turned her attention to Morgan, "Use that if he starts to come to, just put it straight in to the vein." She told him as she gathered up her medical supplies and shove them in to her pack.

"We can't just leave them here on their own." Rick remarked, "Morgan would have to stay with Duane to keep an eye on him but there wouldn't be anyone to check the perimeter." He hurried to explain at the stink eye he was getting.

"Officer Friendly's right." Merle huffed from where he was now standing against the wall.

"Then who's going to stay?" Marlena asked the five males since it wasn't possible for her to stay behind, she needed to get the right medicine.

"I'll stay." Rick spoke up, "I think that the three of you would be better equipped in that sort of situation than I would be but in the end it's up to you guys as well and then Glenn and T-Dog should hit the shops."

Marlena shrugged, "I don't really care, you boys hash it out between yourselves but hurry up about it, and we need that stuff." She said and walked out of the room and went to scope out the yard and road in front of the house.

"Let's get going toots." Merle said as he, T-Dog, Glenn and Daryl walked into the foyer with their weapons.

Marlena, T-Dog, Glenn and the Dixon's swiftly headed out of the house and to the MSFV and off into the direction of the hospital that Rick had given them directions to and as he said, it looked pretty abandoned just from the first look of the outside, but it was always the inside that was the most trouble to anyone.

Marlena reached under her chair and pulled out a box and flipped off the lid before handing some of whatever it is to the guys before taking some for herself.

"What's this shit fer?" Merle questioned looking over the newspapers.

"Wrap 'em around your ankles and shins in case of the crawlers, walkers we can take care of easily enough but can't ever be too careful." She explained as she twisted the duct tape around her leg to secure the papers on each leg and then passed it over to Merle who followed her example along with Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog.

Making sure their weapons and bags were secure they headed into the hospital, Lena snapped some glo-sticks and handed them all out to Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn and Merle and kept a few hanging on herself so that there was at least there was a little bit of light for them to see and Lena had learnt that the walkers couldn't comprehend them like they could with a flash light.

Lena headed for the stairs hoping to start at the top and work their way down but looking up the stairwell she could see that these ones were blown out, so she headed for the next lot and thankfully they were intact so the trio began their climb to the top.

"Why we starting at the top?" Daryl questioned not really understanding why, it would be harder to get things down from the top floors.

"We can repel the items down and just grab them at the bottom, it will take less time than going a couple of floors, taking the things to the MSFV and then coming back in and starting again." Merle explained, he understood where Lena was going with what she was doing.

"Huh." Was all Daryl replied with as he kept an eagle eye out for anything coming from the stairwell above and below.

The three moved swiftly up the staircase to the top floor of the hospital, Lena carefully pried open the door and quickly stopped when the hinges squealed throughout the stairwell causing them to wince at the sound, Lena let the door gently fall closed and ruffled around a front pocket of her bag and pulled out a lubricant and deftly rubbed it into the hinges and waited a moment to let it settle before trying the door again and this time there was no noise from the door, she retrieved a mirror on a stick from her pocket and extended it out of the door to check the hall that she couldn't see.

"Alright, looks clear for the time being." She said as the door shut and she grabbed the rope that was curled around Merle's arm, tied it off on the stair rail and unfolded a net and then went back to the door, "We're going to need to leave the door propped open so we can get everything we need down but someone is going to have to go back down to the bottom to unload but we can decide that once we've got some shit." She explained.

"Well let's get going." Merle grunted and swang the door open and held it, they would have to find something to prop it open, and headed out into the hall, his knife raised and ready for any walker that came at them.

"Where too first?" Daryl questioned his crossbow at the ready, he'd be the one taking the long shot compared to the other two.

"Dispensary and medical storage room, that'll be where they'd have the really good stuff but I want to get I.V poles and other equipment but we can get them down in the emergency department being that it'll be easier down there." Lena explained to both men as she surely but slowly headed for the two places.

"Anywhere else up here that we could hit?" Merle questioned, "We might have to split just to get all of the shit we need."

Lena chewed on her lip, "Alright, two of you head to the storage room any small glass bottles, like morphine, make sure that they are packaged properly so that they don't break during transportation, morphine is going to be gold." She told the four and leaving it up to them to decide on who was going where and she continued on to the dispensary to start there.

"You're comin' with me Daryleena, Lena can take care of herself and the storage room is huge." Merle decided, "You hear that Lena?" He whispered loudly over to her.

"Can't just leave her on her own man." Daryl said through the thumb he was chewing on.

Merle scoffed, "Of course we can, trust me little brother, she can take care of herself."

"What are we?" T-Dog questioned about him and Glenn, "Chopped liver." He said moving to follow after Lena to help her out.

"Go ahead, we're good." Lena responded and pointed down a hall leading off from the nurse's desk, "Head down there, medical storage should be down there." She said waving her hand in the general direction before she kept going for the dispensary, there wouldn't be as much on normal floors but the floors that held theatres and the pharmacy, but every little bit counted now.

The four worked swiftly from floor to floor, Daryl had headed down to the entrance and backed up the MSFV through the doors making a terrible racket but nothing would be able to get past the MSFV and into the hospital, he packed up the MSFV with the boxes of medicine towards the back and packed blankets around them to reduce the shuffling and bumping as they drove. They were making good time getting thought the wards and grabbing what Lena had told Merle, Glenn and T-Dog to keep an eye out for and what she herself was gathering. Daryl was also hitting the pharmacy near the emergency room and the dispensary while waiting for the others to load up and repel down more stuff that needed to be packed and at the rate they were going they would need one of the trucks that were outside.

"Guys, we're gunna need one of the trucks from outside, there's more shit and it ain't all gunna fit." Daryl told them through the set of walkie talkies that they had come across.

"How full is the MSFV?" Lena questioned.

"Full, all five of our arses won't fit for the return trip." Daryl responded, "But it'll take the lot of us to unload alla those bodies."

It was about 20 minutes later, after T-Dog, Glenn, Merle and Lena had cleared out the floor they were on before coming down to help with clearing the bodies off of one of the trucks before moving the MSFV and replacing it with the truck and started to load that up, "How much more shit do we need?" Merle grumbled as he took a break and had a smoke.

"Honestly I wanna get it all, this shit isn't being made anymore Merle and with the way the world is now, we'll need it eventually and I'd rather have it." Lena explained.

"I get that toots, but where the hell are we supposed to put this shit?"

That questioned caused Lena to pause in her packing and look over at both men with a stumped look on her face, "Well hell, I never thought about that." She mumbled and lent back against the truck to think it over, "Damn, ain't nowhere safe to store this shit anyway."

"Yeah and Deputy Walsh won't be none too happy about it neither." Merle grumbled, "Too much to worry about."

Daryl snorted, "Until it's needed to save his life then he'd be all for it but we wouldn't have it because he's a dick."

"There's always an underground bunker, but we ain't got time for that today."

A light bulb went off in Lena's head, she knew of a place that only a few people knew of in the USA and she was one of those few people since another three that knew had been taken out by walkers and the others were all the way in D.C with the President, there would be no way anyone else would be able to get in.

"There's a base but it's gunna be a long drive, I can store this shit there until we need it and I know that it'll be secure." Lena explained as she pulled out a map and pointed it out to T-Dog, Glenn, Merle and Daryl, "This is where it's located."

The guys looked over where she had pointed and both turned to look at her as though she was mad, "We been hunting there before sugar, it's near our stomping grounds and our Uncle's place. There ain't nothing there."

"Of course there is, you just wouldn't have been able to find it without knowing where to look." She responded smugly, "Might not have been here long but I know about some pretty important and secret places."

"Would it be liveable and secure? Is there anyone still there?" Merle immediately questioned.

"Sure it is, it's a base, but more importantly it was designed to be entirely self-sufficient Merle and it's got all the goodies such as solar powered lights and showers, it is underground but it's better than what we have now. No, there is no one there, I was there when we were called out, I was the last person out and I locked it down, it's cleared." She told them.

"It's take a while to get there, people might not go for it." Daryl spoke up.

"Sounds like bloody paradise to me." T-Dog added his input.

"True but it has beds, they even hollowed out the mountain a bit so that a garden could grow as well as crops there is also an underground water source. The only way in is through me." She said firmly.

"Let's get this shit finished and haul ass back to Officer Friendly, we need to get back to the quarry and talk to everyone about the base." Merle said as he headed back inside the hospital, a little bit more and they would be done.

"Can ya'll get this on your own?" Daryl questioned.

"I'm sure we'll be fine baby brother." Merle responded, "Go hunting, be back in an hour, two tops."

"A'rite." Daryl mumbled as he grabbed an empty pack and headed off quickly for the woods he could see in the distance to do some hunting, hoping to grab a deer for a change from eating rabbits and squirrel.

"If he's going to go hunting, T and I should head for the stores, gather all the food we can." Glenn spoke up from where he was seated on the truck bed, "We'll need the food eventually."

Lena nodded, "Sounds good, if you're sure you guys can head out but be careful and meet us back at Morgan's." She told them firmly.

Glenn and T-Dog grabbed one of the smaller army trucks and headed out into town to hit the stores and grab what they could in the time that they had and see the others back at the house.

Lena sighed as she relaxed on the tire of the truck with Merle next to her having a smoke while they waited on Daryl, his two hours were nearly up and they had finished getting the last of the medication from the hospital, "We should drive to the woods, he might have bagged a deer or something." She spoke up.

Merle rolled his eyes, "Ya got a walkie and so does he, why don't ya try reaching him on it." He suggested and watched as Lena reached for the walkie and pressed the button as a signal so that she wouldn't disturb what Daryl was hunting.

"Wot?" Came the younger Dixon's gruff voice.

"You bout done?" Lena questioned.

"Yeah, heading back now, got me a deer and a boar among other things." He responded.

"Where you at?"

"Heading back to the hospital now."

"Alright, we'll meet you at the edge of the woods." Lena told him as she and Merle headed for the transports and fired them up and headed for the edge of the woods where they picked up Daryl with his haul. Lena was impressed, he had a deer up over his shoulders and was dragging a boar behind him with a rope wrapped securely around his chest like a harness, his bag was also dripping with blood.

Daryl threw the deer in the back of the truck, untied the rope and threw the bag in before picking up the boar and shoving that in as well and climbing in to the cab next to his brother and they headed off back to the house where Rick was holed up with his friend.

"How did everything go?" Rick questioned as the three piled into the house, Lena went straight passed him to check on Duane to see how he was going after the amputation, leaving Merle to inform Rick about their haul and about the base that Lena mentioned, showing him where it was on the map and what his thoughts were on going there with the group, T-Dog and Glenn had turned up not long after them with a huge haul of food and clothing.

"Hey." Lena said as she walked into the bedroom, "How's he doing?"

"He seems to be doing okay, he woke up a bit ago in pain so I gave him that shot you left and he hasn't woken up since." Morgan explained.

"That's good." She said with a smile as she sat on the edge of the bed with the EMT pack pulling out a B.P cuff and stethoscope to check on how Duane was going, he also hadn't got a fever yet which was good but she was going to hook up a I.V for the trip back, "Do you have all of your things packed?" She questioned putting the items away.

"Yes ma'am, we're just waiting on when you're ready to go." He responded pointing over to the couple of bags near the door.

"Alright, grab your stuff, Merle'll get it in the truck while I get an I.V and set up Duane in the truck." She said heading to the door, "Merle, help Morgan, Daryl come and carry Duane to the truck, lay him in the back." She ordered and both men moved to do as she asked and soon everyone was in the trucks and they were on their way back to the quarry.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello everyone, so here is Chap 6, it's probably a bit longer than the others but that's mainly because I couldn't decide where to cut it off but I think that I chose a good spot to do so.

Gracie15Trowa: I will be having run in's soonish with some of the more hostile people that come along, but I have pretty much completely cut out the Vatos at the moment, that might change thought but I am definitely going to have the Governor appear but I'm not too sure on how I'm going to go about it since it is such a huge part of the story line later on.

So have no fear Peeps, the hostiles are certainly going to be popping up but the question is of how I will be able to put them into my story with how it's evolving. But if anyone has any ideas on how I could incorporate them please let me know. I'm also having a hard time about how to get rid of Shane now. Whether or not I should do it as in the show or change it up somehow. Please let me know people.

Please enjoy and Review.

* * *

Chapter 6

Shane paced around the campsite, something he had been doing since Rick and the others had left, something was wrong, he could feel it but he couldn't figure out what that was yet and it pissed him off, even more so than the fact that Rick was alive and he now didn't have Lori and she was pissed at him for lying, but he hadn't lied he had really thought that Rick was dead.

"They'll be back." Dale spoke up from his spot on top of the R.V, "Nothing will stop them from coming back."

"It's what they're coming back with that has me concerned Dale, we can't have any more people or vehicles, especially more trucks." Shane responded.

"Why is it such a bad thing that they wanted to go for more supplies Shane, what if something happened, God forbid, to one of us as we needed what the others were bringing back from the hospital, I'm also sure that they would get any food that they came across as well." Dale came back with, there was nothing wrong with what the others were doing in his mind.

"Yeah whatever man." Shane grumbled and walked off to the lake leaving Dale to shake his head at the man's retreating figure.

Dale looked around the camp, everything was peaceful even though the world had ended, the kids were playing around being carefree and living at the moment the world was as it had been and everyone was just having a camping trip and weren't fighting for their lives, life was beautiful when things were so simple.

But it was all anything but simple and that is what everyone needed to remember or every one may not survive what was going on, but he would be damned if he let it happened on his watch, so that is what he did, he watched, not just for walkers and other people but watching the people of the camp, things that happened that Marlena would need to know about once she returned considering it had to do with her tent. It also broke the old man's heart about how Rick had no idea about what his wife and best friend had been doing in the 2 months since the end had come and from what he understood it was that the end happened a few weeks into Rick being shot and then a little while after they had set up camp did they start engaging in extra activities.

Dale knew a lot by being on watch and some of it wasn't good at all and when he told Marlena what was going on than the shit was really going to hit the fan with everyone. The rumbling of vehicles knocked Dale from his musing and he looked to see that there were several trucks making their way up the slope to the quarry, everyone rushed over to see who it was with Shane in the lead.

Dale sighed as he climbed down from the R.V so that he could maybe be the voice of reason between everyone but with the Dixon's involved, things might not go that way.

Those that left on the trip jumped out of the trucks but ignored the group forming around them to pull something out of the back of one of the trucks, it was a body of a young teen that was hooked up to an I.V and was followed by a man that was possibly his father holding up the bag and they hurried over to the Med tent where Lena could take care of the young man.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Shane roared as he was ignored by the group and the rest of the group were muttering between themselves about the trucks and two extra people.

"Not right now Shane." Rick responded as he raced past back to the truck and grabbed the re-stocked med bag and headed back to the tent to drop it off with Lena, not long after they all emerged from the tent.

"What the hell Rick?" Shane snapped, "What are we going to do with all this shit? It's too fucking much."

Merle raised an eyebrow, "So food isn't necessary then?" He questioned, "How 'bout clothes? Medicine?"

"We don't need all of this, we're only a small group." Lori spoke up from next to Shane.

"The world has gone to shit, all of this stuff isn't being made anymore and probably never will be again, so it's better to have all of this shit than to not have it at all." Lena spoke up, "What if someone got shot by a stray group of not so friendly people?" She questioned the entire group, "Yeah think about that and what all of this stuff could provide you with." She muttered after she saw the group murmuring to each other.

"Who was that you were carrying?" Carl questioned.

"That is Duane." Rick spoke up, "The son of the man that helped me after the hospital."

"What happened to him?"

"He was bitten." Outrage came from the group at the proclamation about the boy being bitten and that they were all now in danger if the boy turned, Shane grabbed his gun from the holster and started for the tent when he was pulled up short by the gun being pointed at him from Rick, "You leave him alone." Rick growled.

"It's too much of a risk Rick, he needs to be put down." Shane snapped, "You were a fool for bringing him back here."

Merle let out a booming laugh, "Yer a fuckin idiot." He chortled, "The kid was bit about 8 hours ago and he hasn't turned because we took off his arm."

This caused a pause in the group and gave Dale the chance to come to the front, "Cutting off a limb stops the infection from spreading?" He questioned.

"As long as it's is within at least 15 minutes and depending on where the bite is than yeah it stops the infection." Lena explained, "Duane chose to lose his arm, he was bitten down near the wrist so I had a lot of limb to work with and even cut higher than I probably needed to just in case."

Dale nodded, "Than I see no reason to panic if the boy is doing well, I'd imagine that he is sleeping off the medication that he was given for the pain and therefore we do not need to panic." He said being the voice of reason before Shane blew up again, "Now I think it would be best if we got to work unloading the food and clothes and sorted through them so we know what we have."

"Dale's right." Rick spoke up, "Glenn and T-Dog got a huge haul from the stores so at least everyone can have a few more changes of clothes and safety in knowing that we're not going to starve."

"Gunna grab the kills." Daryl spoke up and headed to the back of one of the trucks with Merle behind them and they grabbed their kills and headed over to their side of camp to start gutting and skinning the animals.

"Looks like we're going to eat well tonight." Morales spoke up from where he was with his family, "Thank you for making the run to get these things for us so that we're safe and secure in the knowledge that if anything happened we'd be well looked after." He said as he and his family headed to the back of the truck with the food and clothes and started to unload it and store it over near the fire pit to be sorted through, others of the group headed over to help leaving Shane fuming about everything happening around him.

"Marlena, could I speak with you for a moment?" Dale questioned coming over and then looked at T-Dog, "And if you wouldn't mind would you take watch until I get back?"

"Sure no worries Dale." T responded as he took the rifle off the old man and headed to the R.V to take watch.

"What's up Dale?" Lena questioned as she moved over to the seats in front of the med tent, Rick and Dale joining her.

Dale took off his hat and ran a hand over his head and taking a steadying breath, "As you know, I take most of the shifts on top of the R.V so I see a lot of what is going on in camp. What concerns me is that supplies are being stolen." He explained.

Lena let out a grumbling growl and Rick sat back in his chair running a hand over his face tiredly, he had only been there a short time and it seemed like shit just kept coming and emotions were running high, "Who and what have they been taking?" Lena questioned, already feeling as though she knew the answer but just wanted confirmation.

"Well I'm sure you've guessed one, Ed has been the one mostly doing it, but my guess is that it's all going to him and not the family, whereas the others I think it's given to the children." He sighed, "It has been mostly food but Ed took a fair bit of the medical supplies as well."

"Looks like we'll be having a big ole group meeting then." Lena muttered, "Thanks for keeping an eye out Dale, it's appreciated."

"I'm just doing my part in keeping us safe and together." He responded with a smile and replaced his hat, "I'll be on the R.V if you need me." He said going back to relieve T from duty so that he could rest after his run.

"No time like the present for this meeting." Rick spoke up as he looked over at the fire pit where everyone was gathered looking at the clothing.

"Let's go." Lena said standing, Rick along with her and they headed over to the group.

"What's going on Rick?" Shane asked from where he was standing away from the pit, watching what was going on, he knew the look on his friends face.

"People have been stealing from the supplies." Rick responded and saw a flash of anger on Shane's face that someone was stealing from the group.

"Who?" Shane growled.

"That's what we're going to find out." Rick responded, "Excuse me everyone." He called out for attention, "Are we all here?" He asked as he saw Shane next to him taking count of those gathered, Lena doing the same.

"Couple of people are missing." Amy spoke up from where she was folding up some new clothes.

"Well we need everyone gathered so that we can talk about the supplies, what we do next all of that sort of thing so it would be good if everyone could be here please." Shane spoke up making the meeting seem mundane and not that there was a problem, couple of the people broke off to gather the ones not at the pit and soon everyone was sitting around the fire pit waiting to hear what had to be said.

"Alright everyone, we have some things that need to be talked about as a group and other things that are going to have to be made clear." Rick spoke from where he was standing with Shane and Lena on either side, "First and foremost, there are a few people in this camp that have been stealing from the supplies." Gasps and grumbling came from the group, "We have all of the supplies catalogued and written down so that we know what we have and what we could need more of, these supplies are rationed with a purpose and that purpose is to keep us from having to go scavenging into town again for a while, we cannot have people going to the tent and just taking whatever they please. Yes I understand that there are children, families are already being given a larger portion of any meals we have in the hopes that most of the food would go to the children." He said as he stared directly into Ed's eyes.

"Ya'll knew the process for the supplies and what the system was, ya'll voted on it and now you have gone back on it by going behind everyone's backs instead of coming to me or to Shane since I wasn't here, instead you decided to be deceitful and steal from the whole group." Lena spoke up next, "Medical supplies have also been taken, if it was just bandages that would have been fine but it was other things as well and that is not acceptable, especially considering no one else here knows how to properly use them."

"Everyone's tents will be searched." Shane then spoke up, "Though if you come forward now it would make things easier, we can't be going behind each other's backs when it means all of our survival. Nothing will be done to you, no reprimand and it can be done on the quiet but if there is any of it left, it needs to be returned."

"You have no right." Samuel cried out, "You can't keep the food from us." Some others in the group agreed with this.

Lena raised an eyebrow and stepped forward, "Are you all fucking retarded?" She snapped, "We can't just be willy nilly with the fucking food, it has to be rationed properly or we could all starve a lot faster than we are now. You are all going to have to get used to the smaller proportioned meals and if ya don't like it then there is the fucking door." She said pointing out of the quarry, "Go and get your own fucking food and then guts it down like pigs and see how long you last." Some of the group looked put out, "Most of ya'll ain't doing shit to get anything for this group, it's usually Glenn, the Dixon brothers and I getting shit for all of you and this is how you repay every one of us, by stealing what we have risked our lives for to bring back to the group." She was on a roll now, "I think that there is a few of you that need to step up some more, this isn't a fucking camping trip like some of you believe it is, we are still fighting for our lives against the living dead and none of ya'll would know what to do if we got cornered by those fuckers. Now you either suffer through us ripping through your tents or those of you that did it, bring the shit back to the tent. You have half an hour and then we come knocking."

"And who's going to check your tent." Ed sneered.

Lena rolled her eyes, "My tent is where everything is stored ya dumb fat fuck, how can it be searched for extra supplies that have been stolen. Move your asses' people or tents get raided."

"Was there something else you wanted to talk to us about?" Andrea spoke up.

"Yes but it can wait until this is taken care of." Rick explained as those willing to prove they didn't do anything allowed Shane to check out their tents to get the ball moving while some others decided to stay around the pit not happy with what was going on.

Lena moved over to the vehicles they had come back in and started to go through what was there and put the medical supplies where she needed them most, she would have to go through everything and have certain things in reach while other things could be put towards the back of the MSFV or the truck, but considering that people were stealing from camp maybe it was best it was all split between the MSFV's so that it was all locked away. Lena spent quite a few hours sorting everything she had gathered and making sure that it was packed better than it was when they were back in King County so that there was more room for people if need be she then moved over to the other MSFV and half-filled that with medical supplies making it so that there was some of everything in both vehicles just in case there was ever a time that they ended up split off from the rest of the group.

"Yer a'rite there sugar tits?" Merle questioned coming up behind her.

"Yeah Merle, just pissed that people don't think things through and may possibly put other people in danger." She sighed, "We can't really afford to think as individuals anymore we have to think as a team you know that from being in the military."

"I know darlin' but they don't and it's what is going to get a lot of these folks killed." He responded as he lent against the MSFV, "They're gunna need to be taken out to where some of the walkers are and teach them how to kill the bloody things instead of just screaming and calling more to 'em." He mused as he looked over the camp, "Also gunna have to get the kids taught too, no matter what their parents think about preserving their 'innocence'." He mocked.

Lena was about to respond when the cries of the children echoed throughout the camp site causing the able bodied adults to run out into the woods in the direction of the screams and come up on a walker feasting on a deer, the kids quickly went to their respective parents for safety and an arrow swiftly dealt with the walker before it decided it didn't want the deer anymore.

"What the hell happened to the cans on strings?" Lena snapped, "I had that shit strung up for this exact reason."

"Yeah well it was in the way." Shane responded.

"That wasn't your choice to make Shane." Lena growled, "It was a camp decision for them to go up and it seems that you're the only one that had a problem with the alarm system, so it should have been a camp decision to take them down not a Shane decision." She knew exactly why he had taken down the primitive alarm system, so he could have sex with Lori and not alert anyone to what they were doing, but being human it was easy enough to either go over them or under so as not to make them clank.

"Whatever." Shane scoffed and walked away but not without a parting glare.

"This is the first one we've gotten up here." Dale muttered as he looked around the immediate area.

"We should probably do a quick scout before it gets dark, we want to be sure that we're as safe and secure as we can be." Rick spoke up as he ushered Lori and Carl back to camp.

"I'll put the cans back up." Lena muttered, "They're not much but it's still something." She said and went to do just that while everyone else went to look to see if there were any more walkers.

* * *

Lena shovelled down the food that was on her plate, she was starving after such a long day and then having to find out that people were stealing and that Shane had taken down the warning system and a walker had gotten too close to the camp. Something she was also thinking of was a fridge for the meat that Daryl brought back, yeah it'd get eaten within a few days but it didn't need to spoil in the meantime, and also maybe a smoker.

"What 'ch thinking 'bout sugar tits?" Merle questioned as he slurped down his meal.

"We need a smoker for the meat to make some jerky, or a solar fridge to have the meat last longer." She explained.

"Where would the fridge go?" Merle asked.

Lena shook her head, "No fucking idea." She admitted, "Maybe it could be attached to one of the truck beds."

"That'd work, but where would you be able to find one of those fridges, they're not exactly an easy item to find."

"I was thinking that maybe there would be one back at one of the bases." She said through a mouthful of food.

Merle whistled, "That's a long shot toots."

"Yeah, but it'd be better to maybe check and see and be able to store the meat a little bit longer than have it go off before we can smoke it or eat it."

"Officer Dick won't go for it." Merle reminded her, "We also have to think about getting rid of a couple of these trucks." He said as he looked over at line of trucks.

"Yeah, we'll get the fuel barrels all into the one truck, but we'll need a forklift to do it unfortunately, and then we can figure out where the rest of the trucks can go." She agreed.

"Then you had best talk to the rest toots." He said slapping her on the back, there was no way in hell that he was going to do any of the talking with the officers.

Lena gulped down the last of her meal, slapped Merle on the back in goodbye and headed over to the wash trough and took care of her dish before heading over to where Rick and Shane were sitting, "Need ta have a word with yas when yer done." She said to the pair.

"Is there something wrong?" Rick immediately asked moving to get up.

Lena put a hand on his shoulder to halt him, "Nothin' wrong Rick, just wanna talk some things over with yas."

"Is it going to effect the group?" Shane asked, he had a suspicious look on his face.

"Nah, not at all." Lena said patting Rick on the shoulder and went back over to the brothers.

About 20 minutes later Rick and Shane walked over to where Lena was sitting laughing it up with Merle, the pair stopped as the two officers approached the brother's part of the camp, "So what's up that can't wait till morning?" Shane questioned.

"Merle and I were chin wagging and it was brought up about the vehicles, now, I'm not getting rid of the armoured vehicles, that is just suicide in an environment like this." Lena started to explain, "And we need to keep one of the trucks to transport the fuel barrels, but the others can be gotten rid of if everything is packed away right and leaves enough room for people to get inside."

"How many of the armoured vehicles are you thinking of keeping?" Rick asked as he looked over the vehicles.

"Depends on how many people wanna head to the place we spoke about earlier." She said with a shrug, "Even then I would want to keep at least three of them and the larger truck." That was the truck that she had from the beginning and had driven passed them in.

"Should just get rid of them all." Shane piped up, "They're gas guzzlers and we don't need them."

"Actually they have better fuel mileage than any of the vehicles in this quarry." Merle added his two cents, "These things are made for long distance and for safety."

"They're hot boxes." Shane sneered.

Lena and Merle shrugged, "Then people will just have to get over it. The vehicles are going to be the best thing we have going forward, this world is more fucked now that it ever was before. There is no law so the law is unto itself now and it's kill or be killed and I'd rather have the protection of those vehicles against the other people out there than risk being caught in a car with windows that will shatter under enough pressure." Lena explained, "I really dunno what your problem is Shane, but out of everyone here, who is actually more qualified to fight though a lawless civilisation?"

Shane was not happy at that question, she was calling him on his ability to protect the people in the group and he didn't like it, "I know what I'm doing." He growled.

Merle snorted, "Nah ya don't. Not when everything is against you."

Shane was about to say something when a scream rent through the air and the four turned to see that Amy had been bitten on the arm by a walker and was about to have a chunk taken out of her neck when an arrow killed both of the walkers around her, Lena glared at Shane who glared back, "You fucking bastard, you took them down again." She growled before shoving Shane out of the way and bolted over to the MSFV and opened the lock boxes to pull out a couple of guns and started to shoot at the walkers that were swarming the camp.

Lena threw her guns over to Merle as she went over to where Amy was lying, having been shut out of the R.V by Lori who was with the kids and didn't want Amy in there with them, that pissed Lena off. Amy was hysterical and clutching at the wound, Lean fell to her knees next to the younger woman, "I'm gonna cut it off." She yelled over the hysteria and injected Amy with some morphine and it took effect in seconds, Lena added a little extra to make it happen faster, "Daryl, cut it." She yelled to the hunter that was near her.

"Leave her alone." Andrea cried out over the noise as she got closer.

Lena brought Andrea to a stop, "You let me do this or she dies." She said point blank, "If you don't let me do it I will put a bullet right between her eyes right now." Andrea looked at her in shock so Lena turned away and nodded at Daryl to do the cut while she held Amy down, two swings and the arm was severed and Lena hurried to clamp and stitch while the chaos was going on around her.

Silence soon fell over the campsite as each of the walkers that had invaded the site were taken down and there were bodies everywhere, walkers and their camp mates alike, blood everywhere with a few of the living in their death throes.

"Do something." Lori demanded of Lena when she finally came out of the R.V.

"Excuse me." Lena said back, "What the fuck am I supposed to do you soppy cunt? Am I supposed to cut off their heads and hope they'll be okay?" She snapped and walked off but not before telling Merle to move Amy to the med tent, there was a pile of bodies in front of it from Morgan defending the tent which held his defenceless son.

Lena walked around to the truck, started it up and then flicked on the flood lights, to light up the entire area, something she hadn't want to do because it could announce their presence a lot more than a fire would to anyone undesirable. Once she had done that, as everyone else were struck silent and immobile by the chaos around them, Lena went around and shot all that were on the ground in the head again, walkers, or the ones bitten even if they were still alive. If they were still alive, they wouldn't have been much longer with the blood loss and the bite there wasn't a chance to save them.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Shane yelled as he got in her face.

"I'm making sure that they don't come back." She responded pushing him away and continuing on with what she was doing.

"You have no right." He said, "You're a fucking doctor."

Lena paused and turned on Shane, "You have no fucking idea about anything do you ass hat, this is an entire shit show, there is no way in hell that these people will make it, not with where the bites are and the blood loss, also the fact that a few of 'em have their guts all over the place. I'm putting them out of their misery and pain." She snapped as she punched him, "Now either help or be a pussy and go and sit down since it's your fault that we didn't hear the warning, I put the cans back up but obviously you took 'em down again." Lena continued to double tap all of the bodies on the ground, the one that were still living actually managed to give a smile in thanks for not turning to which Lena gave a small one in return.

Sun light fell over the camp as dawn broke and everyone could really see the damage that had happened to the camp as loved ones were crying over the bodies of those that had died, Carol being one of them who was sobbing over her fat slob of a husband who had been ripped apart and Lena didn't have it in her to really care about it.

Lena headed over to her tent where both Amy and Duane were settled, mainly to check over how Amy was doing after such a shock of being bitten though she was knocked out for the removal, she would be waking up soon and then things would be clearer as to Amy's mental state and physical state.

"Hey Morgan." She said as she entered the tent, "How's Duane doing?" She asked as she moved over to where Duane was lying and gave him a look over and then changed the bandages on the stump.

"He's doing okay. He woke up for a brief time during all the… ruckus." He responded as delicately as possible.

"That's good, it means that he's going to come out of this fine with no lasting damage. We'll have to see what we can do about a prosthesis though." She told him with a smile before checking the I.V and flicked it off, "He should come out of it more now, it's best that he wakes up and starts to move around and eat as well."

"How long before you think he will wake up?"

"Couple of hours." She says as she heads over to Amy and starts checking her over cleaned and bandaged the stump, "Please let me know if either of them wake up." She said leaving the tent only to be accosted by Andrea.

"How is she?" She asked trying to barge past to get into the tent.

Lena grabbed her shoulders to stop her, "Calm down and I'll be able to tell you." She said and waited for Andrea to calm down before removing her hands from the other's shoulders, "She is going to be fine, her vitals are stable and the wound is clean, once she wakes up I'll have her take some antibiotics to help with any infection that my happen but she is still asleep right now, her body is still recovering." She explained, "You may go in, but please come and get me as soon as she wakes up, do not delay coming to get me." She tells Andrea with a slight warning tone to her voice.

Andrea nodded and headed into the tent without a backwards glance, Lena ran her hand over her face before heading back into the thick of things and start disposing of the bodies, some of the bodies were being put in the holes that Jim had been digging and that made Lena cringe, the decomposition of the bodies would eventually bleed into the water of the quarry making it impossible for anyone else to have the fresh water that was there. Lena headed over to where Rick and Shane were standing watching as everything went on and discussing about where they should head next.

"We should be burning the bodies, not burying them." She spoke up.

"No." Lori immediately snapped, "We've lost everything of our old selves, we need time to mourn and bury our dead."

"And cremation has been around a lot fucking longer than burial. Besides it's something that is done when there is an epidemic going on, it stops the chances of the soil and water being contaminated with the disease." Lena snapped back, "We burn them all because this area might become home to another lot of people who are looking for somewhere safe to weather through all this shit. So we burn them."

"We're going to bury them you callous bitch." Shane snapped.

"Well this shit is all your fault Shane." Lena yelled so that everyone could hear her, the activity in the camp stopped to listen, "I put the cans back up after that first walker came close to camp yesterday, spent all day doing it. No one else wanted them down except for you, so thanks to you all of these people are dead because we were caught unaware when the sounds of the tins would have given us a few more fucking seconds to get armed and get the vulnerable out of the way." She was now in Shane's face, "Remember this Shane, I let you and these people stay when I could have just shot the whole fucking lot of you and stole what you had. I was the one that got the camp set up properly, I was the one that worked out the shift rotations and I am the one that got everyone able to handle a gun, I am the one, along with Glenn, that risked my life in the city to get shit for you and the rest of the camp. You're the one that sits on his ass and fucks a woman in the woods instead of doing his job." Yeah Lena really didn't care if that came out, she was too pissed at Shane thinking it was all about him, "You are not the boss, you do not know shit about high risk situations so I would shut the fuck up and follow the lead of someone who had been through shit like this before."

Everyone looked on in stunned amazement but couldn't deny that Lena was right about everything that she had just said was completely true about Shane and the dynamic that was the campsite, but Lori was looking at Lena in complete and utter horror on her face and confusion on Ricks and then there was clapping that snapped a lot of people out of it, they turned to look at where the clapping was coming from to see Merle clapping with a giant smile on his face.

"Well said sugar tits, I'll get the fuel." He said and headed to his truck to get the fuel so that they could burn the bodies.

"You fucking cunt." Shane roared and went at her only to go face down on the ground with a gun pressed to the back of his head and a knee in his back.

"You have no say any more about the people in this camp, you lost that right when you took down the alarm system, primitive it may have been, it still could have warned us as to the threat that was coming." Lena told him with no emotion in her voice.

"Rick, do something." Lori urged of her husband, "You can't just let her do this to your best friend."

Rick just looked at his wife, to his friend and then back to his wife, "So who was Shane with that caused him to have a default in brain functions that he would put the safety of everyone else second to getting his dick wet?" He asked him, "Because I'm sure that Daryl was able to navigate the cans with no problems while hunting."

"I don't know Rick but that isn't the issue here right now, Lena has a gun to the back of Shane's head."

Rick shrugged, "I can understand her frustration, he made a stupid move and the people of the camp paid for that with their lives Lori. He can't make these decisions on his own."

"It was as a group that we voted on putting the cans up for some semblance of an alarm." Lena spoke up but she still hadn't moved, "Raise your hand if you wanted the cans down." She called out over the camp and no hands were raised, "Raise your hand if you wanted the cans up and that they should have stayed up." All the hands in the camp went up, "So Shane went against the group's decision and fucked us over." She moved off of Shane but not without kicking him in the ribs first, "Pile the bodies, two piles – us and them and then we will have our 'funeral' but we will not bury." She said and walked off.

"You can't be okay with this Rick?" Shane snapped at the man as he got up and dusted himself off.

"She's right Shane, with those cans up we could have had a little bit more warning to get people to safety and be better armed." Rick said in response as he shook his head at his ex-partner.

"I can't believe this." Shane grumbled as he ran his hands angrily through his hair, "She is not in charge here."

"Neither are you." Rick responded, "From what I can see, this is a group decision when it comes to safety, not just yours." He said, "If I were to go around and take a vote I wonder who they would say is the leader." He said and walked off, away from his wife and best friend to help take care of the bodies that littered the campsite.

"How the fuck does that bitch know?" Shane hissed at Lori.

"How the hell am I supposed to know Shane?" She snapped back and walked off to keep her son distracted from what was going on around them.

A few hours later all of the bodies were piled and set a blaze, a small funeral was held for the ones that had belonged to the camp before going back to the fire pit to talk about the plan of action that they were going to undertake and where they would go from there when Jacqui called out that Jim had been bitten. Lena hurried over to where Jim was backing away from everyone with a shovel as a weapon, "Stand down." She snapped as she pushed through and pushed them all back, "Back up or I start butting heads." She warned before turning her attention back to Jim, "Come on Jim, let me have a look at the bite."

Jim lowers the shovel, "I'm okay." He whispers.

"I know, but I still need to check the wound Jim and clean it up." Jim nods and Lena moves over to Jim and takes him by the arm and leads him away from the rest of the group so that she could look him over, Jim sat down on a chair out front of the med tent and went into grab her med kit before looking Jim over and saw that there was a bite mark on his stomach and the skin around it was raw but she cleaned it up anyway, "You have a choice to make Jim, on what you want to do."

"I know." Jim said softly, "I was going to talk to you but Jacqui saw it and a huge deal was made outta it."

"You alright toots?" Merle questioned as he came around the tent, he was suspicious of Jim.

"Yeah Merle, we're good." She responded throwing him a smile, "We're just discussing options."

Merle looked over Jim, "It's the man's choice, no one else's." He said and walked off knowing it was none of his business what was going to happen next, but obviously it was everyone else's as Shane came over to the tent arguing with Rick and some of the others of the camp as to what was going to be done.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP." Lena yelled over them and they did quick smart, "I have patients sleeping in the fucking tent you inconsiderate asshole. Also, this right here is none of your business, its Jim's and he is the one that gets to choose what happens to him, no one else." She told them all and watched as the faces varied with different emotions, "Now how about you all fuck off elsewhere while I take care of my patient and HE makes the decision about his own life?" Every one dispersed but Rick.

"Is there anything that you need?" Rick asked, "Either of you?"

"Just some water please." Jim spoke up and Rick nodded his head before going into the tent and grabbing a bottle and brought it back out to Jim, "Thank you." He said giving the ex-sheriff a nod.

"No worries." Rick responded patting the man on the shoulder before walking off to leave them to it.

"I'll leave you for a little while to think about what you want to do." Lena said giving Jim a smile before heading back to the fire pit to have the discussion about where they were headed next.

Lena took a seat with Merle and Daryl and everyone started to settle down so that ideas could be thrown about on where they should head next, "We should head for the CDC." Rick spoke up, "It could be the best place for Jim given the situation."

Lena shook her head, "The CDC is going to blow within the next 24 to 48 hours, they don't have enough fuel to last much longer." She spoke up.

"How would you know that?" Shane questioned with a sneer on his lips.

Lena gave him a deadpan looked, "I was stationed there so I know how long the fuel will last and yes, while I do have the fuel, there isn't any of the additive left for the generators so either way it's going to blow." She explained, "Well actually, it'll implode."

"Why?" Sophia spoke up from where she was sitting next to her mum.

"The CDC is where diseases are made, studied, cured, all that jazz. There are some really deadly viruses in the CDC that we don't want to be getting out on top of this disease, you know like plague, so as a fail-safe for running out of fuel or in the face of a terrorist attack the CDC will implode taking all of its deadly diseases with it."

Shane scoffed, "And we're just supposed to go on your word?"

"And where do you want to head Shane?" She asked him.

"Fort Benning, they'll have protection, food, somewhere to lay our heads… What?" Lena was laughing hysterically at that pipedream, Merle had to keep her on her seat she was about to fall off of it due to the hysterics, though he wasn't much help either since he was laughing too, "What's so funny bitch?"

"Fort Benning is done for." She finally managed to get out, "If the Atlanta safe zone was over run within 24 hours than Benning wasn't far behind. There hadn't been any proper screenings to see if people had been scratched or bitten because of how hectic everything was and then they turned within the safe zone taking out everyone there because they weren't prepared. Why do you think I hauled ass outta town?"

"So where do we go then?" Glenn spoke up, "Is there any where safe?"

"Well there is one place, but it's a bit outta the way." Lena said, "Remember back in King County when we were thinking about somewhere to store everything?"

"Oh my God, yes." Glenn said happily, "We should totally head there."

"What are you talking about?" Jacqui spoke up in confusion.

"There's a base, it's the base I came from when we were called out from Atlanta and I'm the only one left alive down here that is able to get back in and others that could get in would be with the President if he's still alive." Lena explained, "It's fully self-sufficient with solar power, water and heating with an underground water source, it's got apartments instead of just barracks and has a functioning farm."

"Sounds too good to be true." Lori muttered.

"Yeah, it does doesn't it, well it's completely and utterly secure the only way in is through me." Lena said, "The only problem is going to be the distance to travel."

"Where is it?" Carl questioned.

"Well it's definitely outside of Georgia that's for sure, we'll be heading to Virginia, the base is located south of Washington D.C." She said.

"Then how do you know that the president won't be there? Or someone else?" T-Dog asked.

"Last communication I had from them while in Atlanta was that the President was heading out of the US from Fort McNair when everything went down, don't know how far they all got but there could be a way to find out if we head to the base. There are other bases like this set up around America and since you can't fly to this one, they wouldn't have headed for it, they'd go for one of the ones with a secure landing strip." Lena explained, "It's going to be a long drive if this is what people want, but it sure as hell will be more secure than anything else right now."

"So you want us to risk our lives for something that might not even be a possibility?" Shane questioned.

Lena shrugged, "You don't have to risk your life, but I'll be going and taking a lot of this stuff with me, so really think about whether or not you want to be left with your ass hanging out when you need a doctor." She said and left the group to check up on Jim.

Lena came to the tent and saw that Jim was slumped in the chair that he had been sat on, sweat dripping down his face as the fever settled and raged, "So what's the verdict?" She asked him as she took a squat next to the man.

Jim gave the woman a smile, "I just want to be with my family." He responded and Lena gave a nod, "That is my choice."

"That's fine with me if that is what you really want." Lena said, "You're obviously in the right state of mind at the moment to be able to choose so I will do everything I can to comply with your request." She tells him with a small smile before getting up and heading into the tent, "How's everything in here?"

"We're all good." Morgan spoke up, "I think that they're both starting to come around, they've been moaning a little every now and then so I think that they'll wake up really soon." He explained.

Lena smiled at the man as she grabbed her equipment and started to check Duane and Amy over, "Yeah, I'd say they will wake up within the next half hour or so." She agreed and put the things away and went to the tablets and rolled out some pain killers and antibiotics and put them next to each patient, "Get them to slug these down when they wake up, some antibiotics and pain killers." She explained.

"Thank you." Andrea said softly though her gaze didn't leave her sister.

"No worries." Lena said as she left the tent and headed over to Rick, "Hey, Jim's made his decision." She told him.

"What has he decided?" Rick asked as he turned from his wife.

"He wants to be with his family." She told him, "His family were ripped apart by walkers, it's how he got away, they were too busy feeding on them to worry about Jim." She explained when she saw Ricks confusion at why he wasn't with his family already, a light bulb seemed to go off above Ricks head followed by a sadness.

"So how is it to be done?" He asked.

"Rick." Lori said in horror, "You can't be serious."

"He has full cognitive awareness Lori, it's what he wants." Lena told her, "It's got nothing to do with you."

Lori reared back as though she had been slapped in the face, "It can't be what he wants." She snapped.

"Go and ask him yourself if you don't believe me, but this is what he wants, he wants to be with his family." Lena responded waving over at the med tent, "Go on, go and ask him what he wants." Lori didn't move from next to her husband but the glare did get turned up a notch, "Yeah, that's what I thought." She said to Lori and turned her attention back to Rick, "I'll make it as painless as possible." She tells him.

"How?" Rick asks again.

"I have the medicine to make it painless, much like a lethal injection. He'll die human, he'll die free." She explained, "I can get it done right away."

Rick nodded, "If it's what he wants then you should go ahead and do it." He said with a sigh, he was reluctant to do it but if Jim was coherent enough to make this decision than it was his decision.

"It'll be done before the day is out." She tells him and heads back to the tent to get everything ready to help Jim out.

Lena was getting the injection ready in the syringe and had just put it down when Shane came charging over like a bull, his face red and the vein at his temple throbbing, he went to rugby tackle Lena but she stepped out of the way and pushed him in the back so that the follow through would make him stumble and fall, "What the fuck is your problem?" She snapped at him.

"We don't kill the living." Shane yelled at her gaining the attention of the entire camp.

"It's not your choice Shane, it's Jim's and he is coherent enough to know what he is asking for." She responded.

"Bullshit." Shane snapped.

"Hey." Jim called out as he stood from the chair where he had been parked since it was found that he had been bitten, "This is my choice, I want this, you don't get to have any say in it." He told Shane firmly, "You keep outta business that isn't yours."

"You're not in your right mind man, you can't make a choice like this." Shane responded.

"IT'S MY CHOICE." Jim roared, "NOT YOURS." Shane backed up from the man, "You don't get to decide what is best for me when I know myself better than you do. You know nothing about anyone in this camp, you never did the right thing in getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of the people here and how they could help. You were never the leader here even though you thought so, we didn't. Lena is the leader here, she took time to get to know everyone and what they could do and took their advice or concerns while you just strutted around thinking you were king of the roost, well newsflash, most of us hate you." Jim was on a roll and no one was stopping him, he was on his deathbed so they were more than happy to let the man go, "You're too self-important and involved with yourself to see or care about anything else going on around you, also, knocking boots with another man's wife is low, everyone knows, we'd watch as you would head into the woods to meet up with her, thought you were being discrete but you weren't, there are eyes everywhere in this camp Shane and we all knew." Jim then turned on Lori, "And you, you need to learn to keep an eye on your kid, I have seen your son with Lena and Glenn more often than I have seen him with you, you birthed him so you have a responsibility to look after him, not think that you have free babysitters to do that for you. I don't see Carol leaving her little girl alone all of the time like you did with your son, you need to get your priorities straight." Merle started to clap from where he was standing with his brother who was biting at his thumb in his usual nervous habit, "Thank you." Jim tells the man, Merle stops clapping and looks at Jim in confusion, "If it weren't for you and your brother bringing us meat to eat, the food wouldn't have lasted as long as it has and if you stick around these people will be lucky to have you with them."

"Yer welcome." Merle said giving the man a nod.

"Thank you Lena, you too Glenn for doing what you did to get us supplies, even when it was at the risk of your own lives to get it." Jim continued, "Rick, you have been given a gift in finding your family again, follow your gut as you continue forward in this world but don't shoulder it on your own, rely on the people with you to help you through it. You're all going to have to band together to get through this world." He now said addressing the whole camp, "No one can be on their own anymore, not when the dead out-number us now and that some people out there might not have the same values that you all do and may try to hurt or kill you to get what you have so you need to protect each other and work together." He said and then looked back to Lena, "I'm ready."

The survivors moved about the camp finishing up their cleaning of the site until there was somewhere that they could sit and talk about the options before they headed out of the quarry and onto something else while looking for safety. Their attention was taken away from the task when Lena walked out of the Med tent carrying a bundle in her arms, Merle and Daryl moved over to take the body from her while Lena headed over to where Jim had dug some graves and lined it with a little wood and fuel before getting Merle and Daryl to lay the body down, some of the group slowly trickled over to the site for the funeral, Shane watched on from where the fire pit was stationed as Jim's body was set on fire and had a funeral.


	7. Chapter 7

Hey Everyone, I hope that everyone enjoyed their holidays I know that I did LOL.

Here is the newest chapter I hope that you all continue to enjoy what I am writing :)

I also feel as though I haven't really explained what's happened between Shane and Lena or do you guys understand enough from what little i have put in as to why they are at odds with each other? Should I do a small flashback scene somewhere? Please let me know.

* * *

Chapter 7

"So what's going on?" Lena asked Merle as they headed back to the fire pit.

"Officer Dick is making a fuss and so is Queen Bitch but I think a lot of the others are more than happy to head to the base." He explained.

"I smoked what meat I could, the rest we're going to have to eat tonight." Daryl spoke up from where he was following behind, Lena turned to look at the man in question, Daryl shrugged, "It's not so hard to smoke the meat with so little if ya know what you're doing."

Lena nodded, "Awesome. We'll have something to snack on as we drive around." She said as she gave Daryl a friendly punch in the bicep at his forward thinking in taking care of some of the meat, "You guys are so fucking handy to have around."

"Seems as though we've been training for this shit." Daryl muttered as he looked over his crossbow, "Everything we do now is to eat and survive."

Lena nodded, "Yeah, true that."

"The trip to the base is going to take a while, we're going to need to get everything settled with the MSFV's and trucks before we head outta here." Merle said as they returned to camp.

"Drop me off near the city and I'll head to the construction site that was near that department store." Lena said to Merle as she waved over at Glenn to join them.

"What's up?" Glenn questioned as he joined the group.

"Gotta head to that construction site to get a forklift if they had one there, we gotta get the fuel barrels on the one truck to make things easier." Lena explained to him, "Just wanted to see if you wanted to come along to gather any last supplies."

"I'll quickly run around the camp and ask if there's anything that we are getting low on, I think that we're good on most things but there is some stuff that might be needed." He said and headed off to run around the camp to find out if there was anything that the others needed.

"Alright, so I have everything medical packed and split between the MSFV's so that if we get split there is supplies between the two, so I would like you to have that one Merle, you know how to use that shit if you need to." Lena tells Merle, "There is also some of the food and clothing in them as well but the bulk of that is in the personal carriers."

"What about the weapons?" Merle asked in a low tone not wanting anyone else to hear, "And what about the stuff that was hanging over the cliff?"

"Weapons will be split between us and I've already pulled up the stock over the cliff." Lena explained and then turned to Daryl, "I want you in one of the carriers as well Daryl, but it's a very specific one that has a huge haul of everything that at the moment we can't use until we get somewhere established and I can start setting shit up properly."

"What kinda stuff is it?" Daryl questioned as he chewed on his thumb.

"The kind of stuff that would be able to get us in contact with anyone else in the world that might be up and running." She explained, "There has to be other groups out there but I won't be advertising where we are going to stay, we can't risk that sort of thing with the state of the world but at least we'd have an idea on how many people are out there."

"Arite I guess I can do that." Daryl muttered, "What about the bike?"

"Haul that into the truck with the fuel barrels, should be all good there."

Daryl nodded and went over to where the brother's camp was to finish off preparing the meat for the later meal, with a pat on the back to Lena Merle wondered off to get the truck to drop them off at the edge of the city as Glenn came running back over to her with a list, pack and weapon already on his being.

"I'm ready to go." He chirped, he was glad that he was going to be getting out of the quarry for a little while especially after how the night before went.

"Let's get going then." Lena said slapping him on the back and they headed over to where Merle was waiting when they were stopped by a red faced Shane, "What?"

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" He questioned harshly.

"To the city for a last run and to get the forklift so I can transfer the fuel before getting rid of a couple of the trucks." Lena explained slowly to him, "Now go away." She said making a shooing motion.

Shane got up in her face, "You're not fucking going anywhere."

Lena looked bored as she looked around the camp to see that everyone was watching them for the inevitable blow out that was going to occur. In a few swift moves Shane was on the floor wheezing for breath as Lena looked down dispassionately at him, "I'm sick and tired of you getting in my face, next time you get in my face I will beat you so bad people will think you're a walker." She said in a deadly monotone as she walked over him only for a knife to go through her calf causing her to let out a cry of pain as she panted while on her hands and knees.

Lena looked over her shoulder to see the triumphant look on Shane's bruised face as he pushed himself up from where she had flattened him out, her eyes narrowed as she reached down, grabbed the knife and ripped it out of her calf before standing and facing the ex-sheriff's deputy as she examined the bloody knife that was pulled from her leg and punted it down in to the ground at Shane's feet where it stuck out of the ground, Shane looked down at the knife at the wrong time because that was when Lena attacked, belting the man in the head with one swift blow causing him to crumple in an unconscious lump.

"You alright there toots?" Merle questioned as he came over with the kit he always keeps on him.

"Perfectly fine thank you." Lena muttered, she was still staring down at the useless lump at her feet, quite tempted to stomp on the asses head until it was mush.

"What the hell did you do?" Lori screeched as she came over and started to look Shane over.

"Fuck off Lori, just be happy I knocked him out and didn't slash his throat." Lena growled as Merle takes care of her leg, "Or cut his cock off and shove it up his ass."

"You're an animal." Lori snapped, "How dare you attack him for no reason."

"No reason?" Jacqui scoffed, "There was a reason for the attack, he stabbed her in the leg Lori, he got what was coming to him."

"You don't know what you're talking about Jacqui, Shane wouldn't do that." Lori defended.

"Lori." Rick spoke up, "He stabbed her." He said as he looked down at his wife with something different in his eyes, "She warned him repeatedly to stay away from her and not to get in her face like he did but Shane went one step too far, he actually stabbed her for absolutely no reason other than hurt pride."

"We all saw it Lori, damn, even your own kid saw it." T-Dog spoke up from where he was standing and he pointed over to where Carl was standing and Lori looked to see that Carl was looking scared of what happened between Lena and Shane, a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Lori looked horrified knowing that her son had seen what had happened during the altercation and she knew that there wasn't anything she could say about what had gone on, not with so many witnesses to what had happened.

"If you're done defending a man that don't deserve it, then Glenn and I will be on our way so that we can get back before dark." Lena spoke up as she looked down on Lori, "If that's okay with her Majesty." She sneered and then walked off to Merle's truck so he could drop her and Glenn in to the city.

"Well that was pretty intense." Glenn finally spoke up once they were underway.

"I should have just killed him." Lena grumbled, "It'd get the irritating ass outta my hair once and for all."

"Well maybe he'll go the opposite direction to us when we split from the quarry." Glenn offered but he knew that it was highly unlikely to happen.

"Nah, won't happen." Merle spoke up, "He'd want to stay with the protection and the only person with medical knowledge."

Glenn sighed, "Yeah, I suppose he would. Bummer."

Lena slapped Glenn on the shoulder, "Don't worry about it too much Glenn, he won't cause any more trouble if he knows what's good for him." She told him, "We'll just ignore him and go about life and trying to get through the apocalypse and somewhere safe."

"Sounds good to me." Glenn agreed as he grabbed his bag as they came to a stop at their usual drop off spot before the city limits, "We'll see you later at home." He said to Merle as he climbed out of the truck.

"We'll see you back at camp soon." Lena said to Merle as she shut the door and walked around to join Glenn and start their last trek into the city.

"So…" Glenn spoke up after a little while, "I was thinking about something but whether or not it would be a good idea is what I'm worried about."

"What's up? Can't know until you tell me."

Glenn took his cap off and rubbed a hand through his hair then replaced his cap, "Well I was thinking that maybe we should see if there are still some serviceable R.V's around." He admitted.

Lena looked at him in confusion, "Why would we need an R.V?"

"Well, I thought that maybe we could make the R.V a mobile medical unit." He told her, "If something happens requiring surgery the person recovering won't be able to sit up for long periods and the I.V bag won't be able to be hung properly, so I was thinking we could turn an R.V into something like that."

"We've got Dale's R.V though." Lena reminded him though what he had brought to her attention was a good idea.

"Yeah, I know but the engine's a piece of crap and could break down in the middle of a group of these things and we wouldn't be able to get out to fix it for who knows how long." He explained, "I just think that maybe it's something we should think about as we go through town."

"It's actually a really good idea Glenn, we'll have to see what we can find as we go through." She said throwing him a smile, it really was a good idea to have something like that and maybe be able to throw in that freezer she wanted to see about getting as well to keep the meat fresh for as long as possible.

"Do the military have anything like that? Would there be anything like that here in Atlanta?" He asked.

"Yeah, it'll be armoured as well so that's a plus, everything we drive now should be armoured just in case. No they wouldn't have brought one into this situation since they were setting up shop in the safe zones, they just used the buildings and kept shit in trailers." Lena replied as she came to a stop at the entrance of an alley to look around for where the walkers were when she saw it was clear they continued on, "So where should we go first then?"

"Well we'll need a vehicle anyway to pull the forklift so we could look for the R.V first?" Glenn offered, "I know where we could go first to see if there is any." He said as he took the lead and started for a different direction than their original destination.

Lena and Glenn hurried through the city for the central car lots where there were several in the one area of all different makes, one of them being nothing more than R.V's and camping trailers, it looked like it was their lucky day as the lot seemed to be clear of walkers but that didn't mean that they were going to let their guard down as they checked them all out to find the right one for the use that they were wanting to use it for.

"What one would be best?" Glenn questioned as they looked through the windows of the doors but couldn't see much of the inside.

Lena sighed as she looked over to the office, "I guess we'll have to go in to the garage and managers office to get the keys so that we can check them out properly." She grumbled as she checked her grip on her weapon and headed over to the office to get the keys. Lena pulled out a couple of glow sticks and snapped them so that they could see as they entered, it wouldn't do to get blind-sided by walkers now of all times, they headed over to the boxes that held all the keys to the vehicles and grabbed the whole lot and headed back out into the lot.

"This is too…" Glenn started to say when Lena slapped her hand over his mouth.

"Don't you dare say it." She warned him, something always went wrong when someone said that sentence and she didn't want anything to go wrong right now, not when they were so close to getting what they want, "Go for the big ones, the bigger the better for what we want the R.V for." She told him as they headed to the back lot where the larger ones where parked.

"What's that on the back of this one?" Glenn questioned as they looked over a large black R.V that had something on the back that wasn't normally there.

The pair went to the addition to have a look at what it was, careful to keep an eye out for any surprises as they did, "Well it's powered by solar." Lena said as she looked it over and then unlatched the double doors and let them fall open to see that it looked like a freezer or fridge, "It's cold storage." She said with an impressed huff, it was exactly the thing she was looking for, "Do any of the others have one because this would be the best one to get just for that function alone so that any meat Merle and Daryl get will stay fresh for longer." She explained.

"I think that there is an even bigger one toward the back." Glenn muttered as he led the way to the bigger R.V but were brought up short and had to duck behind the R.V as there was a gaggle of walkers in front of them.

"Is that the one?" Lena questioned.

"Unfortunately." Glenn groaned, "And we don't even know what key we need." He grumbled as he looked down at the keys in his hands, "Hey, wait a second." He mumbled.

"What?"

"Can you see what the licence plate number is on that R.V?" He asked, "Cause the keys are tagged with the corresponding plate numbers." He explained.

Lena felt like slamming her head into the R.V they were next to for not thinking about that, "Gimme a second." She mumbled as she looked around the edge to see if she could see the plate number but let out a sigh, "Nah, can't see it from here." She responded and then carefully walked toward the other end of the R.V to see if there was a way to see it from there but with the way it was parked she couldn't see it without going out into the walkers, "Damn it, we'd have to go out there to see." She told Glenn.

"Well from looking around, I've eliminated some of my keys but there's still a few that it could be and that's not counting what you grabbed." Glenn explained the pile of keys that was at his feet that belonged to some of the R.V's surrounding them.

"One of us is going to have to go out there and get their attention while the other gets to that R.V and gets it open." Lena muttered as she looked around the R.V again, it seemed a couple more had joined the loiterers. Lena handed over her lot of keys to Glenn, "Just remember to check if there's anything inside as well and shut the door behind you." She told him, "Now get under the R.V and once the walkers have moved to follow me, get the plate, get back under this R.V, find the key and get your ass in there." She explained the plan to him.

Glenn gulped, "Okay, but I really don't know how I feel about this." He responded but did as she had said and crawled under the R.V while she slinked off to put some distance between them before she made some noise to get them away from the R.V that they wanted.

Lena took a deep breath before she hit the blade in her hand against the bumper of one of the R.V's to get their attention, decaying heads snapped in her direction, the snarling and frothing echoing as they headed for her so she raced across so that they could see her, to the other side of the lot to get them away from Glenn's position.

Lena hurried away the best she could with the knife wound to her leg, but she had to push through the pain like any other time and make sure that she and Glenn made it back to camp with everything that they needed so that they could then haul ass outta the quarry. A walker popped out from one of the other directions causing Lena to bring up her weapon and take it out which also meant that the others had caught up causing Lena to have to hurry her ass up and head in another direction yet again which also meant that there was a possibility that she could get cornered by the lot of them which meant that she would have to use the gun to get out of the mess that she was in.

Lena hurried over to one of the R.V's and started to climb up the ladder to the roof, the hands of the walkers scratching over her boots and it suddenly made her glad that she put the newspaper around her legs as well considering there were would have been a few close calls with some of those scratches, pulling herself up onto the top Lena took a moment to gather her wits before looking around to see what the pack around her looked like and if there was a possibility to get back to where Glenn was without having to use her gun. Lena crawled on her belly over to the edge and looked down to see that they were clawing at the edge, doing that to the rest of the R.V saw that she was trapped on the R.V with nowhere to go without using her gun and she really didn't want that to happen.

Lena sighed as she stood up on the R.V and pulled out her gun from the holster on her hip to start taking out the walkers around her when Glenn came roaring around to where she was taking out the walkers at the front of the R.V leaving enough space for her to jump to the ladder of the R.V that Glenn was driving, taking a running leap she cleared the gap and hit the ladder hard, her hurt leg giving out causing her to nearly to let go and fall to the ground but she held on and heaved herself up to the roof and hit the skylight letting Glenn know that he could haul ass outta the lot and away from the walkers that had surrounded Lena.

Lena took some deep breaths to calm her heart rate before she pulled the skylight open and all but tumbled through and into the R.V proper startling Glenn a little bit from the noise, "Sorry Glenn." She puffed as she pulled herself up and sat on one of the seats.

"That was fucking close." Glenn managed to get out, he was shaken about what had just happened and how close Lena had come to nearly gotten eaten or even just bit, it was a little too much, especially since she was on a gimp leg because of what Shane had done.

"Too fucking close man." Lena agreed, "Thank God this is our last run into the city."

"No kidding." He said in full agreement, "I'm heading to a warehouse, I don't think that I saw a forklift at the construction site."

Lena groaned, "A warehouse has so many variables Glenn, I don't think that we should risk it." She said, "Not after what just happened."

"I can't think of anywhere else we could go though." Glenn responded.

"We'll check out the construction site and if there isn't one there, then we'll have to go to a warehouse." Lena relented, "I would like to get my hands on a yellow pages though."

"What for?" Glenn wondered.

"I want to see if there is a medical warehouse around Atlanta we could hit for some prosthetics for Amy and Duane." Lena explained, "I could at least give 'em a weapon on the end of their arms."

"Not a bad idea and we should grab a couple of extras as well just in case." He agreed as he pulled to a stop where it was clear, raced out of the door and back in a few seconds later with a book in his hand and the door swiftly shut and locked behind him, "Here you go." He said and threw the book at her before starting to drive again.

They slowly drove through the city to the department store that had gotten trapped in all those days ago, it was eerie going through the city now compared to a few days ago, there weren't many walkers around anymore, it really was like they had started to move out of the city since their main food source has, Glenn pulled to a stop out front of the construction site, Lena stood up and walked over to look out the front window to see if there was a forklift in the lot.

"Damn." Lena hissed hitting the passenger chair in frustration, "Guess we'll have to head to a warehouse." She grumbled as she sat down and opened the book to see if there was a medical supply warehouse nearby that would have some things as well as a forklift.

"So is there anything?" Glenn asked after a little while of silence.

"Yeah." Lena responded as she handed the book over to Glenn so he could figure out where it was and how they were going to get there. Lena waited as Glenn muttered to himself about ways to get to the warehouse the easiest as well as alternate routes.

"Alright, let's just hope that the warehouse is locked and there is nothing in there that might jump out at us." Glenn said as he closed the yellow pages and they were off for the warehouse.

"You just had to jinx it didn't you Glenn." Lena bemoaned as they were off again and headed for the warehouse.

Glenn shrugged, "I'm a half glass full kinda guy." He told her with a smile as they drove.

"God." She moaned as she put her head in her hands, couple of minutes later she reached for her bag and pulled out a bottle of water and gulped down about half before passing it over to Glenn to have a drink as well while pulling out a couple of protein bars and handed one over to Glenn to eat. Once she polished hers off she rolled up her pant leg to get a look at the wound that Shane had given her to see that the stitches that Merle had put in had ripped out on one side, Lena sighed and pulled out some gauze and a bandage from the pack to rewrap the wound until she got back to camp and was able to stitch it up again.

"We're here." Glenn spoke up as he pulled to a stop, "So what now?" He asked.

"We can't both go in, can't risk leaving the R.V alone." Lena said as she looked over the warehouse, "It looks like it's pretty secure though so hopefully, fingers crossed, we should be good."

"You stay." Glenn told Lena, "I can get around quicker."

"Yeah but you wouldn't be able to read the boxes of supplies for what I need." Lena told him as she made sure the pack was secure before throwing it over her shoulders, "Just make sure you lock up behind me." She said as she went to the door and peeked her head out to see if it was clear before she headed out to the door of the warehouse and pulled out a lock pick set from her pocket and picked the lock swiftly and eased her way in to the building and tried the light switch near the door, a reflex action even if there wasn't to be any light, but to her surprise the building illuminated and made Lena thankful that she didn't have to use any of the glow sticks and the light would pull any walkers out from their hidey holes or at least make some noise.

Lena swiftly moved through the aisles of products and medicines, very, very tempted to grab more morphine, antibiotics and insulin but forced herself to keep walking, maybe on the way out she could grab a few cases but right now she needed to concentrate on the forklift and the prosthetics for Amy and Duane. Getting to the loading dock Lena let out a sigh of relief as she saw a forklift sitting there with its keys in the ignition, Lena hurried over to the lift, climbed inside the cab and started the ignition praying that it would turn over and with a rumble it did much to her relief and she headed off into the rest of the aisles for the limbs when she came across an assortment poking out of a box, pulling up next to them Lena jumped out and grabbed twenty of each limb so that there would be a supply if needed before she headed back over to the other things she noticed on her way in and re-worked a cleared pallet with more morphine, antibiotics and other things and put the entire pallet on to the lift before heading over to the roller door and hopping out of the cab and shoving up the roller door so that she could drive out and somehow hitch the lift up to the R.V and make sure the medicine was secure on the pallet.

Glenn came out of the R.V to give Lena a hand with securing the lift and the pallet, "I see that everything went well then." He piped up as he worked.

"So far so good." Lena responded, "Now was there anything else that we needed to get before we head out of here and go back to the others?"

Glenn shook his head, "Nah, nothing really important, well except for uh… women's things." He said with a blush staining his cheeks.

Lena huffed a laugh, "I see. We'll we're in luck, there should be some here since they also deliver to the hospitals so that they have some in stock." She explained as she went to head back inside, "Should have said so earlier."

"Yeah, sorry about that, I was a little distracted with everything else that had happened back at the lot." Glenn grumbled.

Lena gave Glenn a smile, "Don't worry about it buddy, it's all good I'll just run in and get a haul now and we'll be on our way."

"But how are you going to carry it out here? We've already hitched up the lift."

"There was another one in there that I can use and put that lot on top of the medicine since it won't be too heavy and once we're back at camp the boys can help grab it off." Lena explained as she headed back into the warehouse and Glenn back into the R.V.

The sun was just starting to set over the horizon as they finally made it back to camp with their load and Glenn pulled the R.V to a stop near where Merle's truck was parked so that it wasn't too much in the way and as the pair looked out of the window they could already see Shane's face start to turn red since they rocked up with yet another vehicle but Lena didn't care. The pair jumped out and went to the back to unhitch the lift so that it could be moved and the pallets lowered so that the top one could be taken off with some help from the others, Lena put them on the ground and backed up with cleared forks and moved it over to the trucks with the fuel barrels so that they could be moved in the morning.

"Ah Merle, Daryl." Glenn called over to the two brothers, nervous about having to call for them at all.

"What's up China man?" Merle questioned as he came over.

Glenn rolled his eyes, "I'm Korean." He grumbled, "Could you help Lena and I with the top pallet, it's got women's products in it for the camp." He explained.

"No worries." Merle said as he grabbed one side with Glenn and Daryl and Lena grabbed the other and with a little bit of effort pulled it off and headed for the centre of camp where they let it drop, breaking the pallet underneath the box.

"What the hell is this shit now?" Shane asked waving at the box.

"Feminine hygiene products that were asked for." Glenn responded, "It was the only thing that the women wanted more of and no one else needed anything from the city."

"Tomorrow, we really want to think about booking it outta here." Lena spoke up, "The city was pretty much deserted when Glenn and I went through, there were only small pockets of walkers ambling around, not like last time."

"So it wasn't like last time at all?" Andrea asked, "There wasn't thousands of them in one place?"

"That's right, they are definitely starting to move out of the city since they've run out of things to eat in there." Lena told her, "So we really should get on the move before they cut us off from getting outta here."

"What's the R.V for?" Duane spoke up from where he was sitting near the fire.

Lena smile over at the teen and went over to him to check him out, "How ya doin' buddy?" She asked as she looked him over.

"Really good thank you." He said giving her a bright smile, "Thank you for what you did for me."

"No problem buddy and the reason for the R.V is so that if there should be another incident like what happened with you and Amy was to happen we would have a mobile medical vehicle so that the person hurt would have somewhere comfortable to get better and there is also a bonus feature to that huge ass R.V."

"What's that?" He asked curious about what could have Lena so happy about the R.V.

"Well it has a solar powered fridge/freezer, so do you know what that means?" Duane shook his head.

"Meat I catch can be kept longer." Daryl spoke up from where he was listening to the conversation.

"That's brilliant." Amy spoke up, her voice coming from behind Lena causing her to turn around to see how she was doing, "A cold box could come in real handy out on the road." She said with a smile.

"Well you can thank Glenn for actually thinking of getting another R.V to be used as a mobile medical unit and the fact that it has a freezer is just a plus."

"We don't need another R.V." Shane spoke up, angry about the whole thing.

Lena sighed and looked around at the group, "Hands up if you think having a R.V as a medical unit is a good idea?" She asked the camp, "This means that I would be able to do surgery if I have to in a stable environment, though not as sanitary as a hospital it'll be kept as clean as possible." She added what the best function would be, most of the hands raised around camp in agreement to having the mobile medic around.

"And you couldn't just do that with Dale's R.V?" Shane questioned.

"No offence Dale." Lena said to the older man before turning her attention back to Shane, "Dale's R.V is old, the engine is not guaranteed to keep going without the proper hoses, of which can be pulled from one of the trucks, but if it were to break down, especially in the middle of a group of walkers, than the people in the R.V would be fucked until the group moved on and depending on how many of them there are would depend on how long we'd all have to wait to be able to fix the R.V and move on." She explained and Shane just glared at her in response, "Now if you'll excuse me I am going to look through the R.V properly to see where I can fit everything in there before it gets much later." She said and walked off to leave the group to talk amongst themselves.

"How can all of you be okay with this?" Shane snapped at the group, "Everything she brings back makes us liabilities out there on the road when we need to run."

"You seem to be the only one with a problem here man." T-Dog spoke up, "Me, I rather like the thought of having a mobile hospital at my disposal at the end of the world." This comment got murmurs of agreement from the people around camp, "Besides, Lena said that she's going to leave some of the trucks and the like behind and I like the thought of something walker proof to hide in."

"What we need to do now." Rick spoke up, "Is really talk about where we want to go now. Do we go to the CDC, Fort Benning or to Lena's base?"

"If what Lena said is true than we're better off going to the base she was talking about." Jacqui spoke up, "Either way we're going to be doing a lot of driving and running."

"I think that we need to think about the efficiency of our vehicles and which ones would be the best fuel wise to get us to where we need to go without having to go through too much of the fuel that Lena thought to bring with her." Dale spoke up, ever the voice of reason and turned to Merle, "From what I understand, those vehicles are rather fuel efficient aren't they?" He asked Merle about the carrier and MSFV.

Merle was a little surprised that someone was asking his opinion on something since everyone usually ignores the redneck, "For a military vehicle yeah, they're pretty good considering they get that kind of technology first before they roll it out on the car assembly line, it needs to be tested somehow."

"What kind of efficiency we talking about here?" Rick asked.

Merle pondered on the question for a little while, "The newer models, like these ones, are the Prius of military vehicles." He said, "Much better than my truck or Officer Dick's jeep."

"Well they might be hot as saunas in there but in all honesty I would feel better being inside one." Rick finally said.

"Well I don't." Lori told him, "Carl and I are not going in those things." She said turning her nose up at the thought.

"The roof can be hinged back, like a convertible but a whole hell of a lot safer." Merle told her, "Least you won't have to hurry to get the window back up if some walkers were to come by." He sneered.

"We'll figure out all of that in the morning once everything has been packed away properly and is organised, everyone can sleep on all of the choices and then we can discuss it again." Rick finally said, "Now who's turn is it to do dinner?" He asked.

"That'd be me." T-Dog spoke up and went about getting it prepared for the camp.

Lena put down the last monitor in the main area, the table was what was going to be used to do any operations on since she would need to move around and the beds in the back wouldn't be the best place for her to do the work that would be required. Next Lena would have to hook all the equipment up to the power source and set up the solar panels to be the optimum output source to power everything, especially the freezer to keep that running all of the time while everything was shut down so as not to use too much of the power until it was necessary to be used. There was a respirator, heart monitor, a portable ultrasound machine and I.V lines set up so that if she had to do surgery on the go and there was enough room for a couple of people if they were injured. The cabinets had been ripped out to make the allowances needed for the machines and the hooks of the I.V lines above the table so that the line had a steady flow. Small storage containers with everyone's names on there were stacked up in the cupboard, couldn't just dispose of the needles and the like anymore, so they would have to be recycled/sanitised and each person would have their own stored in their own storage box.

Lena headed out of the R.V happy with the way that the machines had been set up, all she needed to do now was stock up the medical supplies into some of the cupboards so that there was a stash there when something like that happened and it was inevitable that something would happen. It took Lena at least another hour and a half to transfer everything that she wanted in the R.V especially the morphine and penicillin since they would be needed for surgery.

"Doll face." Merle called as he walked into the R.V and let out an impressed whistle at what she had accomplished in such a short time, "Nice work."

Lena shrugged, "It's not much compared to some of the units we've seen but it'll do for what I need it for." She told him, "At least we'll be protected in here and not have to worry about finding somewhere to hole up while I take care of whatever injury that has occurred."

"And yet Officer Dick doesn't see it that way."

"Yeah well I won't be rushing to help him any time soon after what he pulled." Lena shot back, "I would also like to know who the fuck made him king of the castle." She grumbled as she put away the last of the items.

"His ego did, along with the fact that you were out getting supplies and shit most of the time, thought it made him the Main Man." Merle told her with a laugh, "Now get your skinny ass out here, it's time for dinner." He said and headed out of the R.V to grab his grub, Lena followed after him her stomach growling at the sound of food.

Lena joined the rest of the group, happy to see that Amy and Duane were joining them despite looking tired as they sat there and wincing a little in pain every now and then as they moved around while they ate, trying to use limbs that were no longer there. Lena would have to give them a bottle of pills each for them to take when they were in pain as well as an antibiotic that would help fight the infection that could settle.

"Got that cold box up and running?" Merle asked with a mouthful of food.

"Yeah, so if there's any left-over meat you can throw it in." Lena told him.

"Nah, made sure to use it all tonight." He explained to her, "Besides, it needs time to freeze."

"True." She mumbled as she shovelled another mouthful in to her gob.

"I'm gunna hunt tomorrow before we leave." Daryl spoke up, "So that way we'll have something as we travel."

"Excuse me sir." Duane said as he came over and sat down in front of Daryl and Merle, his back to the fire.

"Wot kid?"

"I was wondering sir, if you don't mind of course, if you could maybe teach me something about hunting." Duane requested much to the shock of Merle and Daryl, but more so Daryl since he was the one being asked.

"Why do you wanna know?"

"In this new world it's going to be something of an advantage to have and to know." Duane explained his reasoning to know and learn to hunt.

"What does your daddy say about that?" Merle questioned, "We ain't nice people kid, not if you ask some of the people around this camp."

"Mamma and Dad taught me that I shouldn't listen to the rumours of other people when those people could be completely and utterly wrong about someone." Duane responded with a shrug, "Dad doesn't mind, I asked him about it when I woke up, he said as long as I listen and don't cause any trouble he wouldn't mind if you allowed me to join you."

Daryl looked at Duane thoughtfully, he had never been asked to teach someone to hunt before, Merle had taught him the basics of hunting but everything else he had to learn on his own with his brother's long absences, "Alright, if yer up to it. I'll take you out tomorrow before we leave and while we're still somewhere relatively safe." He grumbled in agreement.

"Thank you very much sir." Duane said with a bright smile and stuck his hand out to shake but was startled a little when he noticed that there was no hand on the end of that arm, "That is going to take some getting used to." He mumbled with a small pout on his lips as he stared at the stump but put out his opposite hand to shake, Daryl took the hand and gave it one pump before letting it go and Duane moved back over to his dad and the three could see him excitedly telling his dad that Daryl had agreed.

Lena had a giant smile on her face at the looks on the faces of the Dixon brothers and she could tell that no one had ever asked of them something like that before or spoke so respectively to them before either that and the person asked and didn't demand something of them, "Looks like you've got an admirer." She teased Daryl.

"Yeah, but the kids smart for thinking about what hunting could do for him in this new world." Merle muttered, "I wonder if someone put him up to it."

Lena shook her head, "Nah, I don't think anyone put him up to it, he seems like a kid with his head on his shoulders properly and knows what he wants to do to get about in this world." She told him, "I mean, look at how he reacted to having to lose an arm, he preferred that to dying and even just then when he put out his hand he kind of joked it off."

"But he could still break." Daryl grumbled.

"True, but I think that if he has something to do and look forward to, showing him that even one hand down he isn't useless will go a long way in helping him come to terms with the loss." Lena said in response, "It'll probably be Amy that we'd have to keep an eye on since she's kinda useless."

"Yeah, but I also think that being bitten was a huge wake up call for her as well." Merle spoke up, "Maybe now she and some of the others will take this shit seriously from now on."

"Yeah true that." She said in agreement, "I'm just wondering now how many will come with us and how many will take off to try and fend for themselves."

"Well either way, I'm still banking on going to that base." Merle told her, "And hoping to get there in one piece."

Lena laughed and punched Merle in the shoulder, "The three of us would make it no problem, it's some of the others I'm concerned about, especially the kids." She said as she looked over the fire to where all of the kids were huddled talking to each other, "Duane has a leg up from what Rick told me, his dad has taught him how to shoot a gun and knows how to use a shovel as well. Carl, well Lori won't let that shit fly because of her sensitive sensibilities in wanting to keep his innocence in tack when people are eating each other but I think that Carol might let Sophia start to learn now, she won't want her daughter to lose her life since she is all Carol has left."

"Then maybe we should think about giving the girl some lessons if her mum agrees." Merle said, "But I wouldn't be wasting my breath." He grumbled as he looked across the fire at said woman and child.


End file.
